


Judgement's Dawn

by KingSteve



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 115,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingSteve/pseuds/KingSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Prequel to Liberation Day. All their previous efforts have failed and Judgement Day is upon them. Follow John and Cameron's development together as they start the fight back against Skynet. Jameron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night Before

**April 20th 2011**

"Cam, you are so  _wrong,"_ John said through a mouthful of ice cream. "We're you even watching it?"

"Yes John, I have a perfect memory of the movie, as well as the first and second films of the trilogy, and I still fail to understand your comparison."

"Come on, seriously Cam, it's the perfect analogy;  _Megatron_ as  _Skynet._  Don't tell me you can't see it."

"Megatron is a fictional character, John. Skynet is real."  _Oh God,_  John moaned to himself as he shovelled another spoonful into his mouth, carelessly spilling some down his chin. This was another debate he wouldn't win. He wondered if she was simply winding him up, either that or she wasn't as advanced or she liked to think.

"Okay, you win. I give up." He raised his hands in the air as a sign of defeat. He'd never get through to her. He supposed watching _Transformers 3_ \- a movie about giant machines fighting over the fate of the world- was bad taste considering in less than twenty four hours Skynet would begin its own campaign of world domination. Cameron smiled in triumph as she took her napkin and wiped the chocolate goo off him.

It still shocked him how much she'd changed over the past four years; she was a far cry from the Cameron he'd known back in 2007. She'd evolved to the point where she had developed a very basic emotional repertoire. Sure, they were stilted; and she often had trouble understanding and expressing what she felt; and she still came across as slightly autistic, but John recognised them for what they were, and he did not doubt for a second that they were real.

"Aren't you going to have any more?" John asked, pointing at their shared ice cream bowl.

"No, you finish it. I do not require sustenance at this time, my organic components are intact." He knew she could eat and drink – both to assist infiltration and as a means of providing proteins to accelerate organic tissue repair- but she could only ingest small amounts of food at a time.  _More for me,_  he grinned as he greedily pulled the bowl towards him. Truth be told he was feeling pretty full and was just being a pig, but after today he'd probably never get to eat ice cream again, and he was determined to make the most of it. Judgement Day was tomorrow, and he'd decided to mark his last day before the end of the world by enjoying himself. He and Cameron had spent the day just relaxing together, and he'd taken her out to watch a movie, followed by dinner.

"What do you want to do after this Cam?" he asked. He smiled when he realised that this was probably the first time in his life that he'd had a normal day. Right there in the restaurant, they were just a guy and a girl out on a date together; never mind that his date was a cybernetic killing machine from a very bleak future he was about to experience first hand. He was also saddened slightly by the fact their first date would also be their last.

"It is ten forty seven pm John. You need at least seven hours of sleep to ensure you remain at optimum levels of function. We have an early start tomorrow."

"It's not that late Cam," John protested, not wanting the night to end, both because he enjoyed being alone with Cameron, and because after it was over he would have to go back to being the saviour. "How about we go for a drink?" John motioned towards a quiet looking bar across the street.

"You are not yet twenty one; it would be illegal to consume alcohol on the premises and could attract police attention. Derek has beer in the refrigerator if you desire it." She failed to understand why John wanted to consume alcohol when it was detrimental to human health. She'd informed him many times that tens of thousands of people died every year from alcohol related illnesses or injuries. She considered it a form of self termination, and was confused by humans' illogical tendencies to do themselves harm in such ways.

"It's too early to go to bed Cam, come on. We'll do whatever you want." He stifled a yawn; he was getting tired, but he'd never admit it now, and he seriously wanted to clutch at what little time he had left just a little bit longer.

"It would be best to return home," she answered.

"Okay," John sighed; he'd walked into that one. "You win,  _again_. You owe me one, though."

"One what?" she cocked her eyebrow, confused.

"Never mind Cam," he chuckled as he got up from the table, ice cream finished off. Once he'd paid the bill they left the restaurant and started on the long walk home. They'd moved to Colorado Springs five months ago; John, Cameron, and Derek, after Sarah had been killed protecting John from Cromartie. He still couldn't get used to the cold night air, being a mile above sea level. Even so, he took his jacket off and wrapped it around Cameron's shoulders. Intellectually, he knew it was ridiculous; yes, she could feel, both physically and emotionally – though emotionally, she still had a lot of growing to do – but heat and cold would never bother her like it would a human girl. Still, it seemed like the right thing to do, and his sense of chivalry won out.

"I had a really great time tonight Cam. I just wish it wasn't going to go down the tubes tomorrow," he said to her as they walked the mile and a half back to their house. She said nothing in reply. "We should have done this sooner." He meant it, too. It had taken him this long to realise what she was to him; not just his protector now, but his best friend. He'd spent four years wrestling over feelings he shouldn't have felt, trying his best to hide it from his mother and Derek. Even when she'd been caught in Sarkissian's car bomb, he'd been concerned for her, but he'd not admitted to himself that he'd felt what he did now. It hadn't been until his mom had died, and John had retreated into his room for weeks, unable to face the world.

Cameron had stayed at his side the whole time and comforted him, held him like a child and let him cry on her shoulder, hit her, scream and shout at her and curse her and her brethren for ruining his life and taking his mother. She'd taken it all without a word of complaint, though John had seen the hurt in her eyes as he'd hurled abuse at her, the slightest spark of sadness within. He'd questioned then whether or not she really was just a machine. She was programmed to protect him, he knew that much. But he doubted his future self would have programmed her for the kind of compassion and sympathy she'd shown him, meaning she'd comforted him of her own accord. His future self would have known Sarah died before the war, known he'd have to deal with losing her, and probably wanted him to deal with it alone, knowing the grief would harden him to the unimaginable loss he'd experience later in the war.

He'd realised two things then: one, his future self was a cold, cynical, calculating bastard, and two; she cared about him much more than the sum of her mission would have dictated necessary. He'd sworn to himself then that he'd help her fully develop and become human; it was the least he could do in return for everything she'd done for him.

After a half hours walk, hand in hand, they came to their modest three bedroom home on the outskirts of Colorado Springs. They went through the front door and into the living room cum kitchen. John saw that Derek was out.  _Probably out living up his last day, too,_ he realised. He saw a note attached to the fridge for him.

_John,_

_Gone out to town, I'll be back by 1am. Help yourself to beer in the fridge. Keep Tinhead out of trouble._

Well, John thought, 'Tinhead' was an improvement over 'Metal Bitch/Whore/Freak', or 'Fucking Machine.' After his mom had died, Derek had taken the reins and become John's teacher. Strangely, after Sarah had perished, Derek hadn't once tried to get rid of Cameron or even suggest it. She'd seemed to have proved herself useful to John's uncle. John wished he'd see her differently; as a person, not a tool. At least he seemed to think of her as a  _useful_ tool now. His training regime had been much different to Sarah's: under Derek's tuition, he'd undergone long sessions of punishing physical training, weapons handling, survival training, and lessons in tactics, until both his brain and body were ready to explode; followed by just as intense sessions of R and R.  _Work hard, play harder_  had definitely been Derek's unofficial mantra.

He took out a beer and opened it up, offering one to Cameron who unsurprisingly turned it down. They sat down together on the couch; Cameron leaned into John and rested her head on his shoulder as he put his arm around her.

"Cam, I was just wondering; when is your mission complete? I mean, after tomorrow will you still be with us?"

"Your future self never told me when my primary objective would be complete. He told me I would know."

"What do you mean  _primary_  mission? How many do you have?"

"You gave me secondary task to accomplish in addition to my primary objective."

"Well, what is it?" John enquired. She'd never mentioned a second mission before.

"I don't know. You informed me I had a second mission, You never told me what it was. You said I'd work it out on my own."

"Did he say what would happen to you when it was complete?" It amazed John that her orders were so flexible. He supposed Future Him knew how intelligent she was and left it up to her to interpret his orders how she thought best. He wondered what this other mission was, and why he'd not even told her what it was in the future. Advanced as she was, she wasn't a mind reader. How was she supposed to complete her other mission if she didn't even know what it was?

"No. You said that would be my decision, and yours."

"What am I like in the future."

"You know I can't tell you that John."

"I'm not talking about future events, just me. Am I different to now?" Cameron sat silent for a moment, as if in contemplation.

"You're eyes are different," she replied. "In the future, your eyes are like Sarah's, and Derek's." John knew what that meant; distant, cold and hard and wary; eyes of someone who'd seen more than they ever should have in their lifetime.

"You said I had a lot of friends, right?"

"I lied," she said flatly. John's face turned sullen. He'd known all along, he supposed, but hadn't accepted, that he would most likely become a complete recluse. Leadership would be a burden he'd have to bear alone, and it would most likely eat away at his humanity until he was as cold and calculating as the machines; perhaps that was the only way he could beat them. Cameron saw his disappointment, saw what he was thinking, and knew he didn't want to be like his future self.

"In the future, you had  _one_  friend."

"What happened?" John asked, not liking the sound of the 'had'.

"You sent her away." John said nothing more, but he'd cottoned on to whom she meant. She was so much more than the rest of them were; she was nothing like Cromartie, Vick, the T1000, or even Uncle Bob. She was still an enigma to him after all this time. There was still so much about her, about the future, he still didn't know. He'd take his time with her, but the future, he realised, was about to crash on top of him in a matter of hours. Both Cameron and Derek had said that he'd changed, become more like the leader they knew; he didn't see it himself. He wasn't that man yet, didn't know if he would ever be, and he still needed all the help he could get.

"Cam, I really don't think I'm ready for this. I don't know how to fight Skynet. What if I screw it up and get us all killed?"

"You wont," she answered, "you are John Connor. You will win." She paused for a moment, unsure of exactly what else to tell him. She was still under orders from Future John not to reveal too much about the future in case it changed the timeline, but she registered the fear and anxiety on his face, and it pained her; she didn't like seeing John like this. She had to give him  _something._ She had detailed files on every machine Skynet had ever created, and took a moment to access them. It took her almost an hour, but she talked him through every kind of machine Skynet had ever built, from the T1's they'd surely face over the coming weeks and months, the ground and aerial HK units and all their various models that would appear over the years, and finally the Terminators. Every model type, every design she was aware of, including her own, and the best weapons and tactics to neutralise them. She'd effectively told him how to kill her, though John knew he could never bring himself to that. If she were to die, a large part of him would die with her.

By the end of her lecture, John found himself barely able to keep his eyes open. He'd hung on intently to every word she'd said and greedily absorbed every scrap of information she could offer, but it was all so much, and the realism of what was about to happen was hitting him like a freight train. His nightmares would come worse tonight than ever before, he realised. He was actually afraid of going to sleep, knowing how bad they'd get, and knowing how much worse it would be in the morning to wake from one nightmare right into another.

"John, go to bed. You need to sleep," Cameron said, sensing his fatigue.

"Can you stay with me tonight, Cam?" They'd slept in his bed together before, and he'd always found it comforting, as if she was protecting him in his dreams as well as from Terminators.

"Yes John, of course," she answered.

John got changed into underwear and a battered grey t shirt while Cameron changed into similar attire in her room before returning to Johns. It took them a few moments to find a comfortable position, given Cameron's two hundred pound frame. He was on his back, her on her side, head resting on John's chest with his arm around her, stroking her hair with his free hand..

"Cam, I don't know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow, but I want you to know... well... I love you Cam." He was nervous as hell about saying it; he'd never once said it to anyone, not even his mom. It felt good to finally say what he'd been thinking for a while now.

"I..." she started, uncertainly. She referenced numerous definitions of love from her files. She felt a strong attachment to him, her whole existence revolved around him, and she experienced what she could only call anxiousness when he wasn't around. She would do anything to keep him safe and well; she'd die for him without second thought. But she didn't know if that was just her programming or something more. Her feelings towards him seemed to conform to the definitions provided by both the Oxford and Webster dictionaries, but that was insufficient data for her to form a conclusion.

"I...I don't know if I love you John." She saw his face turn sour and registered his dissapointment. He rolled over and turned his back to her, it was clear to her that she'd upset him and it sent surges of unpleasant data through her system that closely resembled her emotional imitation programming – specifically sadness. She did not want him to be angry with her. She felt the same negative responses when he was upset with her as she would do if she'd failed a mission.

"Of course you don't," he muttered to himself, "it's not part of your programming."

John's comment wounded her deeply, much more than he knew; she'd heard it, of course. She had hearing far superior to any human and could hear a pin drop from the other side of the house. It pained her that John could still see her as just a machine, that there was nothing more to her than her programming. She realised her tear ducts had started to function without conscious control and a few droplets started to roll down her cheek and onto the sheets.

"I should start my patrol," she said, her voice changed to her usual steely, mechanical monotone as she slipped out of bed and left the room.

"Wait Cam, I didn't mean..." Too late, she was gone. Instead of going after her like he knew he should have, John just lay there in bed, feeling very pissed off with Cameron, himself, and the world in general. He knew he was getting stressed out because Judgement Day was looming over their heads, also that it was no reason to take it out on her; they were all feeling stressed and scared, apart from Cameron, anyway. She'd always seemed happy enough when she was with him. In fact, John realised, this was the first time he'd ever seen her really upset, and it was because of him.

 _Good going dickhead, telling her you love her and then act like a spoilt brat because you didn't get the reply you wanted. What the hell's wrong with you?_ He knew how insecure she was about her ever changing emotional state; it confused her, she'd always turned to him to help her understand what she felt. She needed him to guide her through it, and it had to be him; Derek never would, and he was closer to her than anyone else (his future self likely included) ever was or would be. He realised now that she simply had no clue about love, and had wanted him to explain it to her.  _And you 'help' her by going right for the jugular. Congratulations,_ he said to himself.  _You're every bit as ruthless and bastardised as the future you who sent her back._ He considered that maybe he'd overestimated his feelings for her.  _Could she ever love?_  he wondered. She felt, he knew that. She knew happiness, and sadness (mainly thanks to him tonight), and rage and anger - the base emotions. Other things; humour, boredom, despair, hope, she had shown none of those. Perhaps love was something that would always be beyond her, no matter how much she evolved.  _Would there be any point in pursuing that kind of relationship if she could never feel the same?_

He kept the same train of thought running through his head for what seemed like an eternity before exhaustion finally overcame him and he slipped into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

Derek felt great as he got out of the cab, leaving a very hefty tip for the driver – it wasn't like he would need money after tomorrow anyway - and staggered up the lawn towards the front door. His last night on Earth had been a huge blowout; they'd still had thousands of dollars left in cash from various less than legal activities he'd performed before they'd moved to Colorado Springs, and he'd decided to blow the lot. First thing's first, he'd gone out and made a complete pig of himself at the first pizza joint he could find, polishing off two large pepperoni pizzas - a firm favourite of his before the first Judgement Day. Then he'd trawled through all the bars he could find and gotten nicely drunk before heading off to the local strip joint to blow hundreds of dollars on a scantily clad twenty one year old blonde lap dancer called Delta until the place closed and she'd invited him back to her apartment for a few drinks, followed by a 'private show.'

She'd given him her number and made him promise to call her, before he'd pulled himself out of her soft warm bed and called a cab back home. He felt like a bastard, knowing that in all likelihood she, along with the other six hundred thousand or so people living in Colorado Springs, would soon me vaporised; but he'd learnt long ago to view himself and almost everyone else around him as walking dead – their numbers just hadn't been called yet. It was a shame really, he thought as he fumbled with the lock on the front door. He really liked this city; it was quieter, more peaceful than LA. Even without Terminators on their heels, Los Angeles had always created a whole slew of problems for them; Armenian gangsters, cops, feds, it was as if the whole city had been conspiring to screw them over.

He'd hoped they'd be able to stop Skynet, then he'd have found a way to take out the Metal Bitch, and he and John could get on with their lives and John would never have to become that bastard commander he'd known before. As it was, they'd failed, the city would be dust in a day, and they still needed that glorified walking toaster John called Cameron. He didn't deny it was useful; hell, it was stronger, faster, and smarter than any human fighter, his own sweet self included; and it was bulletproof. It was one hell of a soldier, he'd give it that. But when all was said and done, this war would be won by real, honest to God humans; there was no place for it with them after tomorrow was over.

He finally managed to get his key in the lock and get through the door, he pushed it shut noisily and switched the living room light on.

"Hello Derek Reese," Cameron greeted him with her classic monotone voice whilst staring intently out the window, not even bothering to turn her head and look at him.

"What do you want, Tinhead?" Derek snapped, nearly jumping out of his skin with shock. He'd had a great night until now; seeing the metal always spoiled his mood. "Where's John?" Derek grabbed a beer from the fridge, suddenly needing another drink now she was around.

"In bed, not sleeping," she replied.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"He's afraid of his dreams, knows they'll become real."  _I know how that feels,_  Derek thought. It was different in his case, of course. He'd only had the nightmares  _after_  the machines had come. He knew it was worse for John, knowing it was coming and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. He wasn't surprised John didn't sleep well; he couldn't. Not with the metal skulking around the house all night, he didn't feel safe around it, even after four years living with it. Cameron turned away from the window to face Derek, staring at him with those blank eyes. Not long before Judgement Day in his time, Derek had taken Kyle to an aquarium. He remembered staring into a huge tank, coming face to face with a great white shark that he'd sworn had looked right at him with its dark, dead eyes; he'd never admitted it to anyone, but it had scared the hell out of him at the time. Now, as he looked at the machine, he saw those same eyes; the blank, emotionless eyes of a soulless killing machine. Given the choice, he'd take the shark over Cameron, any day.

"I don't know about John, but I'm  _hoping_  my dreams come true tomorrow." Derek said. Cameron just cocked her head confused, not understanding his meaning. "Because every night since I got here, I've dreamt of taking you apart. After tomorrow, you're gone, scrapped. _Does that compute?_  Tin can?"

Derek finished his beer in one go and stormed off to bed, taking the empty bottle with him, ignoring whatever reply the machine made. His bedtime routine was the same every night; he placed a stool with several empty beer bottles on top in front of the door so if the machine tried to get in they'd crash down onto the floor and give him a few seconds advanced warning. He loaded his SIG Sauer P226 pistol and tucked it under his pillow; his Uzi 9mm went on the nightstand next to his bed with the spare magazine, in easy reach and the safety off; and the Mossberg 590 shotgun stayed under the covers with him, fully loaded with solid slugs instead of the usual buckshot.

Sometimes he wished the machine  _would_  try something, just to give him an excuse to unload some lead into the metal. _Bring it on, Tin Can,_ he thought as he slowly drifted off to sleep, towards glorious dreams of smashing Cameron into scrap metal.  _Fucking Bring it on._


	2. The Morning After

**April 21st 2011**

John woke up screaming from yet another nightmare; quite possibly the worst one he'd ever had in his life. He'd known it would be bad last night, hence why he'd asked Cameron to stay with him. She knew he suffered from nightmares and had trouble sleeping at the best of times; she'd known how afraid he'd been to go to sleep last night, anticipating that his unconscious terror would be a hundred times worse; she knew that the only times he slept peacefully and without fear of his own dreams was when she was with him, and yet she'd still left him to suffer alone. Yes, he'd been wrong to say what he'd said last night, but she'd stormed off before he'd had the chance to apologise, leaving him alone with his nightmares.

He dragged himself out of bed and ambled towards the bathroom, stripping off and stepping into the shower, hoping the high pressure torrent of hot water would help him feel better and relieve his fowl mood. The hot water massaging his skin did help to relax him, if only very slightly. Derek had taught him to appreciate little things like hot water and indoor plumbing; they wouldn't have it for much longer. Just as he was starting to enjoy it the water turned ice cold, the shock of it nearly made him fall out of the shower. They'd never had a problem with the plumbing before, John thought; Derek or Cameron must have showered shortly before he'd woken up and used up all the hot water. John wasn't pampered; he could deal with cold showers just fine. He never  _liked_  them – the only times he'd ever deliberately ran them cold had been when he'd caught himself having thoughts about Cameron he'd known he shouldn't have had, and he'd given up on trying to banish those a while ago.

He knew it wasn't a lack of hot water that was affecting the shower when the water turned scalding hot once more, and again back to freezing cold in the space of a minute. Someone must have been messing with the hot water tap in the kitchen, and he was pretty sure it wasn't Derek.  _Cameron wouldn't be that petty, would she?_  He wouldn't have thought so, but what with her developing emotions running unchecked, it was possible. She'd had outbursts before when she'd had trouble understanding something she felt or if something had upset her – as he'd clearly done last night.

He quickly got out of the shower, giving up any hope of having it return to normal, and got dried and dressed into clean clothes before heading into the kitchen for breakfast. Derek was nowhere to be seen and Cameron was sat at the kitchen table, staring into space. John took a bowl out of the cupboard and poured himself a bowl of cereal, sitting down to eat it opposite Cameron. He dug in, waiting for her to say something. When she didn't, John took the opportunity.

"That was you playing around with the hot water a minute ago, I take it? How long did you take to think that up last night?" Cameron said nothing but he saw the faintest trace of a grin on her lips. "Real funny; you're hilarious, you know that?" he said, hoping she could detect the sarcasm dripping from his words. "You didn't have to storm off last night, I was trying to apologise when you ran off."

"I didn't want to be in your company. Not when you view me as just a machine."

"I don't see you as just a machine. You think I'd have said I loved you last night if I had? I just... ugh, even for someone made of  _coltan_ , you're dense!" She said nothing but shoved the table hard enough for John's bowl to fall off and spill all over his lap.

"Great! Real mature," he snapped.  _Damn it,_  he'd liked that shirt.

"There's not enough time to wash your clothes, and Derek has already loaded our bags into the car. You will have to leave them behind," Cameron said, a smug grin on her face.  _This is ridiculous,_   _she's acting like a five year old over a stupid comment I made_. He knew what she was doing, trying to get some kind of petty revenge for hurting her last night. He'd spent four years keeping Derek and Sarah off her back, helping her to fit in and to understand the world, and she was throwing it right back in his face.

"Why don't you just fuck off, Cameron? What the hell's wrong with you, anyway? Have you got some wires crossed or something?" He'd meant to hurt her, and it worked just as planned as he saw her eyes start to tear up once again.

Cameron analysed both his words and the tone he used to deliver them and came up with one conclusion:  _John hates me_. She'd been completely unprepared for his outburst and didn't know what to say or do; he'd made  _another_  machine comment, deliberately to hurt her. She ran another analysis to determine a course of action, but found no appropriate response. She did the only thing she could think of and stormed off to her room, slamming the door shut behind her and locking it.

"What'd I miss?" Derek asked, coming through the front door just as Cameron locked herself in her room.

* * *

John stared miserably out the car window, staring at the rain as it descended from the sky – soon to be replaced with a new kind of rain; one that would breathe fire and death over all it touched and give rise to the machine armies, rising from the ashes of the nuclear fire like a malevolent phoenix, ready to hunt down the last survivors of humanity. The dismal atmosphere outside perfectly reflected the mood i _nside_ the car.

The tension could have been cut with a knife, it was so thick. Not one of the three occupants in the car had said a word to each other since they'd set off, and he didn't see the tension easing any time soon, either. John looked at Cameron through the rear view mirror; she stared forward at nothingness, her face devoid of any emotion. Derek's wasn't much better; he stared forward as he drove, looking even more stressed out than John felt. They were stuck in the car together, and would soon be stuck in a bunker together, too; the three of them and enough anger, resentment and tension to start a riot.  _Just great,_ John thought.

John kept staring outside as Cheyenne Mountain; their new home for the next few months at least, grew larger as they approached. The former NORAD Combat Operations Centre (COC) was the perfect choice for their base of operations against Skynet: it was large enough to sustain two hundred people; it possessed all of the radar and satellite imagery and communications facilities to track Skynet's missile impacts and communicate with survivors across the globe; it could withstand a multi kiloton impact; and most importantly, it wasn't in use. Cameron had informed them that Cheyenne Mountain had ceased to be used as NORAD COC since 2006, and was in a state of 'warm standby.' She'd also assured them any resistance they'd meet outside the base would be very light, and from human guards.

John's plan to get in was fairly simple; drive up to the North Portal entrance, Cameron and Derek would beat the crap out of any guards blocking their way and 'persuade' them to give them the access codes they'd need to open the blast doors. Failing that, John had his laptop and all the necessary equipment to hack into the security system and retrieve said access codes. They would be met en route by Charlie Dixon and former Special Agent James Ellison, who had allied themselves with the Connor Clan shortly after Sarah had been killed.

The pair of them had made huge sacrifices to help them try and stop Skynet; Charlie's wife Michelle had left him, believing he was having an affair, and obviously, not believing him when he told her the truth about John and Sarah and Judgement Day. Ellison, not being a family man, hadn't lost anyone other than his colleagues slaughtered by Cromartie. He'd stayed in the FBI until a few weeks ago, using the resources and power afforded by the organisation to help prevent Skynet and arm their little group– obviously without his superiors' knowledge.

Cameron twisted around in her seat in the back to scan a car approaching them fast from behind.

"Relax Tin Can," Derek snapped, "It's only Ellison and Charlie." John looked back at the car behind, wishing he was in that one right now; he'd bet anything the atmosphere in Ellison's car was lighter than the storm cloud forming inside his.

"John, get your head out of the clouds," Derek said, "We're nearly there." They drove off state highway 115 and onto the aptly named Norad Rd, following the winding road towards the North Portal. Within minutes they were on approach to the North Portal car park, only a few hundred metres from the entrance. As they approached one of the car parks the car suddenly came under fire, rounds ricocheted off the bonnet.

"Fuck!" Derek cursed as he ducked low swerved the car around so the drivers' side took the fire keeping it away from John, who had sunk low into the foot well in the passenger side, glad they'd lined the insides of the doors with Kevlar. As soon as the car stopped John opened his door and crawled out of the car, turning to grab Derek's hand and pull him out through his side. Cameron calmly opened her door – facing the gunfire, and scanned for the source as a round struck her on the forehead and gouged a small chunk of skin away to reveal shining chrome underneath.

"Four T888s wielding M4 carbines," she reported, not a hint of urgency in her voice as she raised her HK G36 and returned fire.

" _Four?"_ John asked, incredulous.  _Jesus Christ!_ They'd had enough trouble fighting  _one_  Terminator before, let alone a whole fire team of them.

"Is this the "light resistance" you mentioned?" Derek asked Cameron sarcastically as he opened up on the Terminators with his assault rifle. John cocked his own rifle; an Austrian Steyr AUG equipped with an M203 grenade launcher, identical to Derek's weapon, and took aim at the machines firing on their position. Before he could fire a single shot, the Terminators unleashed a massive full auto barrage, forcing him to take cover behind the car. He felt the impacts of several rounds that struck the bonnet mere inches from his face, his reflexes – honed by training with Derek and sparring with Cameron – kicked in and he'd ducked down to the ground just in time to avoid more incoming fire.

At that moment John wanted nothing more than to stay hidden behind the car, to curl up on the ground and let the others do the fighting, as he'd been used to when Sarah had been around. Fear, cold and primal, rose up in him and he froze in place; terrifying memories of being chased by numerous Terminators throughout his childhood conjured up in his brain and held him glued to the spot. It was so tempting to just run away and hide as he'd always done before. He saw Derek and Cameron firing at the Terminators, their shots accurate but ineffective against the Coltan alloyed monsters. He watched Ellison fire a steady stream of rounds at another of the machines, only to drop to the ground in agony as a round struck him in return. Cameron was hit several times more, not reacting to the shots, but John knew she could feel pain and wondered how she managed to ignore it. He felt each of the rounds that struck her as if he'd been the one hit.

John's fear was replaced by shame washing over him; he was sat there, hiding, while others fought his battle for him, as always. The T1000, Cromartie, Vick, and Carter; he'd ran each time and let others; his mom, Cameron, Derek, and Uncle Bob, fight for him while he cowered in fear.  _Not any more_.

He stood up, fighting the incredible urge to duck back down, and assessed the battle. All the machines were spreading out to try and circle them, getting ever closer. John could see that they were definitely being flanked now; they needed to push them back. He racked his brains, taking a second to remember the lecture Cameron had given him last night on their weaknesses.

"Concentrate your fire, aim for their eyes," he shouted at the others, hoping they could hear him above the din they were making. Only he and Derek had M203s on their weapons, and a limited supply of grenades; the only chance the others had was to take out the Terminators' eyes and blind them so either he, Derek, or Cameron could finish them off. He loaded a grenade into his launcher, took careful aim at a T888 to his half left and fired. The grenade soared through the air and struck the Terminator's chest, exploding in a blinding flash, peeling its chest apart and severing one of its arms. By some miracle, it still stood upright and fired a burst at John. Cameron pulled him back behind the car by the collar of his jacket and threw him roughly to the ground, shielding him with her body as she emptied her magazine into the severely weakened armour; some of her rounds penetrated through what was left of the coltan alloyed chest and tore into its power cell. The machine dropped to the ground, deactivated.

John pulled himself up off the ground and checked himself for injuries as Cameron reloaded her rifle. He was shocked to see a bullet hole in his jacket, less than an inch below his armpit. John knew if it had hit, his arm would have been taken off. He ignored that fact and allowed himself a slight grin to celebrate his first kill – even if it had been a shared one with Cameron.

"Thanks Cam," he said as he loaded a full magazine into place and slotted another grenade into the launcher. She made no reply and turned to fire at the Terminator exchanging rounds with Charlie Dixon, who was too busy fighting the machine to do anything about Ellison's injury. John winced slightly, not knowing if she was still giving him the silent treatment or just focussed on the fight.  _Like you should be, idiot,_  he chided himself as he took in the rest of the battle.

The others were having much less luck against their targets, being forced to stay low to avoid sheets of incoming 5.56mm, and the three remaining Terminators were still getting ever closer; the nearest was just over forty metres away, and they appeared to be strolling towards them at leisure, one approaching Charlie and Ellison's position while the other two focussed on him, Cameron, and Derek. John looked to his left, in the direction of the Terminator he and Cameron had killed, and noticed an SUV that stood out in the near empty car park, less than fifteen metres away. They needed to spread out; they were easy targets, all bunched up as they were, and the 4x4 was perfect cover from which to flank them.

"Cam, cover me," John said as he sprinted up from behind their car towards the SUV, zigzagging as he ran to throw off the Terminator's aim. Cameron tried to grab John and pull him back but was too slow. Instead she loosed a long burst of automatic fire at the metal, trying to distract its attention from John. It appeared confused for a second, unsure of who to fire at, before deciding that Cameron, a well armed cyborg, was a priority target over John. If Cameron were human, she would have sighed with relief as John dived behind the cover of the 4x4. She felt something akin to relief as she realised that – having fired at her rather than John- it had not recognised him as John Connor, every Terminator's priority target.

John looked over again at Ellison and Dixon, who were pinned down behind their car, Ellison clutching a heavily bleeding arm to his chest; the Terminators' flanking strategy was clearly working, and they'd be overrun very soon if it carried on the way it was going. He ran once more away from the SUV and towards the cover of another car, narrowly avoiding being hit once more as a hail of 5.56mm struck the ground where he'd been an instant ago. Behind the new car now, he was out of the Terminators' line of fire as they concentrated on the others. Cameron and Derek seemed to have stopped the Terminators nearest them from advancing under the weight of their combined fire, so John took aim once again with his grenade launcher – all but giving up using his regular rounds – at one of the machines aiming at Derek and launched his second grenade. His aim was too low and the 40mm round fell just short of the metal, the explosion still powerful to knock it off its feet and down to the ground.

John struggled to load another grenade into the launcher as the Terminator got back to its feet and approached him, a murderous glint in its eyes. His hands were shaking with fear as the machine got closer still. He fumbled with the grenade, trying to slot it into the launcher. He dropped it accidentally as his hands trembled even worse.  _Screw the grenade;_  he fired off a long burst from his rifle, hoping to slow the thing down. He had no such luck, however, and the Terminator continued inexorably forward, only a few feet away from him. As John turned to run, Cameron appeared and unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks to John's would be assassin.

Derek watched Cameron fighting hand to hand against the other Terminator and saw the opportunity to take out both metals at once. He readied the grenade launcher on his AUG and fired; the round impacted the T888 in the back and tore it apart, but the force of the explosion sent Cameron sprawling, pieces of shrapnel from the triple 8's endoskeleton tore through her skin and clothes, leaving deep cuts in her organic tissue.

"Cam!" John ran over to her, ignoring the remains of the other Terminator now twitching on the ground. "Please be okay," he muttered to himself as he knelt down beside her, instantly regretting how he'd treated her earlier. After what felt like an eternity she moved; first her head turned to look at John, then she sat up and picked herself up off the ground. John stared daggers at Derek, knowing he'd meant to hit Cameron as well. Derek simply ignored John and turned to fire at another triple 8.

"I'm okay, John," she said as she swapped John's rifle for hers and took two grenades from his bag; she knew she was much more efficient with the weapon than John was, and fired a series of single shots at the other two Terminators, aiming for their eyes as John had ordered earlier. Being a Terminator, her accuracy with any kind of weapon rated at above 99 percent, and her shots struck home and shattered their glowing red eyes. Cameron fired a long burst of automatic into the nearest one and then triggered her M203; the grenade struck the machine square in the face and blew the head apart. It remained standing for a long moment, not realising it was dead, before it finally fell.

Cameron approached the final Terminator, which was firing blindly as Derek and John kept pouring lead into it; she calmly pulled a knife and needle nosed pliers from her pocket. She kicked out at its legs, sweeping them out from under it, and was on top of it before it hit the ground. She pinned its arms under her knees and cut into its scalp, revealing the CPU port cover. She quickly opened the cover and removed the shock dampening assembly, then used the pliers to pull out the chip and placed it in her trouser pocket. She ran another scan and determined all threats had been eliminated.

"Is everyone okay?" John asked. Cameron nodded and Derek just grunted in response as the three of them approached Charlie and Ellison.

"He's been hit in the bicep," Charlie said as he took out his medical kit from the car and began applying a tourniquet to Ellison's arm. "It's bleeding pretty badly but I should be able to stop it if we can get to an infirmary."

"There are medical facilities inside," Cameron replied as she took point and ran towards the North Portal entrance, scanning for any further threats inside the tunnel. When she found none she called the others over, and they marched through the tunnel towards the blast doors.

John was surprised when he saw both sets of blast doors wide open. Even the Terminators wouldn't have been able to open the twenty five ton doors by themselves. As he stepped through he saw the bloodied, bullet riddled corpses of half a dozen Air Force officers and four SFs in a pile on the floor.  _The poor bastards never had a chance,_  John reflected.

"They must have been running some kind of maintenance check or system test when the Terminators attacked," John concluded.

"Good for us," Derek replied, "means we don't have to dick around trying to open the damned blast doors." John ignored his uncle's cold attitude as he stepped through the second set of blast doors and into the actual complex, followed by Ellison and Charlie, who went searching for the infirmary so Charlie could treat Ellison's wound. As Cameron went to step inside Derek raised his rifle at her, fingering the trigger of his M203.

"No more room at the inn, Tin Can."

"Derek," John snapped, "what the hell are you doing?"

"What I should have done years ago," he replied, "scrapping the metal bitch. She's no use to us now. Now are you going to play nice and just fuck off, or do I waste you right here?" He stared at Cameron, a maniacal grin on his face.

"Derek, think about what you're doing. We need her, and if you trigger that grenade in here you'll kill all three of us." Cameron backed away several yards towards the outer blast doors.

"Derek is right," Cameron said. John could tell the faintest trace of sadness in her voice as she spoke, no doubt missed by Derek. "I'm no use to you any more. My mission is complete. I should just "fuck off."" She said the last part in John's voice, mimicking his earlier outburst at her perfectly.

"See, even Tin Can agrees with me," Derek's finger started to tense on the trigger. John's blood turned cold, all emotion pushed out the window as he pulled Derek's SIG from his holster and pointed it at Derek's head, the cold barrel of the pistol pressed hard into Derek's temple.

"Let her in, or I'll kill you." John's voice was devoid of emotion as he spoke. Derek looked at his nephew and saw the cold, merciless eyes of General Connor staring at him, knew John fully meant to carry out his threat, and would probably feel nothing as he executed him.

"Fine," Derek lowered his rifle and glowered at John. "But understand this John; one day she's going to get scrapped, either by another machine or by me. Don't get too attached to it, because one day she'll have to go." Derek stormed off inside the complex. John nearly collapsed on the floor after Derek left, the adrenaline was seeping out of his system and replaced by an overwhelming sense of fatigue. Cameron stepped inside John pulled the switch to close the blast doors then marched down the corridor to find the command centre, leaving Cameron alone by the door.

* * *

It didn't take him long to find it, and he realised how lucky they'd been; everything was already switched on and ready for use. Rows of computer screens lined over a dozen work stations and the walls were dominated by flat screens showing satellite images of the United States and the rest of the world, and news broadcasts from CNN and Sky News. He sat down at one of the work stations and took in as much as he could. There wasn't a huge amount he could do on his own; the command centre was designed to be manned by a score of Air Force officers and specialists. The fact that they'd found the place warmed up and ready to use made John wonder what the Terminators were doing at Cheyenne Mountain in the first place. He guessed they were planning to do the same as he, track all the missiles and make contact with survivors, albeit for the exact opposite reason. If they'd been successful, John realised, they could have coordinated Skynet forces against the survivors and wiped out any chance of resistance.

John turned the lights off, not wanting to waste what power they had in the generators, sat down and stared at the monitors; within minutes he saw and heard the first signs that Skynet was taking over. Frenzied calls from military bases where the experimental T1 automated battle tanks were coming online and attacking everyone; air attacks from unmanned Hunter Killer and Predator drones. John intercepted broadcasts from ballistic missile silos; Skynet had taken control of the nuclear silos, started fuelling the missiles, and released halogen gas from the fire suppression system to kill the Air Force officers attempting to stop Skynet from fuelling the missiles.

Once again, John felt helpless; Skynet was disrupting satellite communications prior to its nuclear attack, and John could do nothing to help. Once again he felt ashamed of himself that he was hiding in the mountain complex while people were fighting and dying, trying to prevent the launches from happening. He knew they'd fail to stop it, knew that Cheyenne Mountain was the best place he could be, where he could rally the survivors of the nuclear fires; but he still felt pathetic and low that he couldn't do anything to help people right now.

He listened in for hours, hearing the garbled radio transmissions of one sided battles against Skynet's machines. He'd started to get used to the sounds of death over the radio waves, started to block them out. He wondered if that's what he did in the future; became numb to the suffering of others. He didn't want to be that guy, didn't want to not care, but that was what he felt was starting to happen.  _Either that_ , he thought,  _or maybe I've just realised there's I should start concentrating on the battles I_ can _win._

After hours of listening in to countless losing battles, and feeling very depressed at his inability to act, another transmission came through that made John jump out of his seat. He put the headphones down and put it on loudspeaker so he could hear it better.

" _...under attack from unmanned combat aircraft. This is Air Force One, en route to Crystal Peak, requesting support from any airborne units. Oh Jesus, another escort plane's down. We've got one on our tail; mother of God, it's locked on to us, deploying countermeasures."_ Several seconds of silence followed before the pilot began speaking again.  _"We're hit, the left wing's gone. We're going down. Air Force One is going down, requesting search and rescue..."_  The transmission went dead, only static remained on the radio. John turned the radio off, not wanting to hear any more broadcasts like that. There was only so much he could take before he'd go crazy at not being able to do anything. He once again felt completely exhausted; he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep.

"John," he awoke and turned his head to see Cameron in the doorway, illuminated by the light from outside. She closed the door and sat down next to him. "Are you okay, John?"

"No Cam," he snapped, "I'm far from okay; the world's falling apart out there and I'm stuck inside this mountain, unable to do fuck all about it. Oh, and three billion people are going to die in the next half hour or so. So I'm about as far from okay as you can get."

"There are some people you can't help, John. You will get used to that."

"I won't Cam; I still can't see myself as being this great leader you seem to admire so much."

" _I_  see it John," she replied, "and I admire you as well as him."

"Why? I was scared out of my mind in that car park; all I wanted to do was run and hide."

"Fear is natural, John; you will learn how to use it to your advantage."

"How would you know? John asked. "You don't feel fear."

"Yes I do. I Fear for you. " John paused at that. Was her fear just a result of her programming or something more?

"For my life, you mean?"

"Not just your life," she answered. "I fear that you hate me."

"Of course I don't, why would I hate you?"

"Because I don't know if I love you; you were angry with me earlier."

"No Cam," John put his arm around her and drew her close, his mind now completely off the screens in front of him. "I was angry at myself for expecting too much from you, too soon. I was just being an asshole and taking it out on you. I'm really, really sorry, Cam." They sat together in silence for a while, John lost in his own thoughts, Cameron in deep contemplation. John saw satellite images on the screens of numerous missiles launching from their silos, erupting from the ground and starting their deadly journey into the upper atmosphere.

Cameron saw the grim look on his face and took his attention away from the screens.

"How do I know if I love you, or if it's just my mission programming?"

"I... uh, I just guess, you know," he replied. He was fairly sure she was trying to distract him from the screens, but she also sounded troubled by not knowing.

"That doesn't help."

"Okay, think of it like this. Your primary mission is to protect me, right?"

"Yes," she answered. He knew that, why was he asking again.

"But why?" he asked. "Why do you have to protect me?"

"I protect you so you can lead mankind to victory over Skynet," she recited mechanically, as if reading from a script.

"What about after that?" John asked. "Once I've beaten Skynet your mission will be complete. Will you still protect me then?" He hoped she'd say yes, that would at least hint that that her urge to protect him was about more than just mission protocols.

"It doesn't matter," she replied. John was about to assume it meant no, when she carried on. "You told me I would likely not survive to the end of the war." Her answer hurt John worse than anything he could imagine, worse than if she'd just said no. He'd just assumed that Cameron would always be there. Compared to the thought of losing her, three billion deaths seemed like nothing. He could take those, as long as she was there for him.

"That won't happen, Cam. I promise," John pulled her closer to him and stared into her chocolate eyes. He leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. She hesitated at first, but soon warmed up to it and returned his kiss with more passion than John would have ever attributed to a machine. Cameron then broke the kiss and stood up, peeling her t shirt off and sliding her cargo trousers to the floor. She continued to strip off in front of John, whose jaw nearly hit the floor. He'd seen her naked plenty of times; when they first travelled to 2007, then on several occasions she'd been shot or blown up, and John had treated her organic injuries. He'd always been too concerned about either her welfare or, in the case of the time travel incident, his own modesty, to really appreciate her naked form.  _God was she beautiful._ He wondered for a moment whether or not he should stop this; did she even know what she was doing? She'd know  _what_  she was doing, of course, but would she know  _why? Is she just doing this to distract me, or does she really want this?_

She silenced his internal debate as she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, devouring his mouth in hers and pulling him down to the floor as she slowly undressed him. John forgot all about Skynet, Judgement Day, and the machines. He ignored the images of the nuclear explosions on the screens above as the missiles hit their targets. In that moment, he cared nothing about the events of Judgement day; he was in pure ecstasy as they slowly made love, bathed in the glowing light of the nuclear fires.

* * *

Derek marched towards the command centre, intent on giving John a piece of his mind for threatening him for the metal bitch. He'd kill his own flesh and blood to protect a toaster; something was wrong with his nephew and he was going to set him straight. John the boy may be well on his way to becoming General Connor, but he seriously needed to grow a pair of balls and learn to ditch the tin can. It wouldn't be with them forever; even if it lasted to the end of the war, John would have to get rid of it. Derek needed to break any attachment John had towards it before it got too strong.

 _You don't keep machines as pets or friends,_ he mused.  _You use them for your own needs then discard them._  He needed John to see that. He reached the closed door of the command centre and heard something coming from the inside.  _Is it coming from the radios?_  John had spent all afternoon in the room, monitoring transmissions from around the country.

He opened the door slightly and realised he noises weren't coming from the radios at all. There, on the floor, was John and the machine, completely naked and moaning in pleasure. He nearly threw up there and then, but just barely managed to keep his stomach down and quickly shut the door again before they even noticed he'd been there, and went back towards the kitchen, hoping to find something  _very_ strong to drink.

 _Why, John?_ He nearly tore his hair out.  _Why, why, why, why?_  Was he completely insane? It wouldn't be so bad, Derek thought, if John was just fucking it; using it for his own pleasure. That he could accept. But he'd seen the pair of them getting closer long before today, and John pointing a gun at him to defend his metal whore; that wasn't just lust. When John had said they needed her, he could tell in an instant he'd meant "I need her." It was clear to him now; John was obviously in love with it. What the hell was the point in that? It couldn't love him back, even if it did give a pretty convincing moan.  _That thing is so fucking dead._ Not today; and maybe not even soon – perhaps even years from now, he swore he'd take great pleasure in taking that tin bitch apart, piece by piece.


	3. Fallout

* * *

**April 22** **nd** **2011**

For the first time since he could remember, John awoke from a peaceful, dreamless sleep. No nightmares, no worries, just an overwhelming feeling of contentment. He glanced down at Cameron, her head resting on his chest as she 'slept.' He'd not known until last night she could do that. There were plenty of things he'd thought she was incapable of up until last night. He smiled as the memories came rushing back, how she'd clung on to him as if for dear life, and the way her eyes glowed a soft shade of blue and never left his as they'd made love. He'd known she could feel everything the same as a human could, but to feel her tremble at his touch like she had, to hear her cry out, he'd not expected that at all. It made him wonder how close she actually was to being human.

* * *

_After they finished in the command centre, John took Cameron's hand and led her into the officers' quarters, picked out a room for them and hurried inside. They undressed once again and climbed into bed; Cameron on her side with her arm draped over his stomach and head resting on his chest, John's arm around her shoulders, holding her close to him. Not the slightest part of him felt wrong that he'd just lost his virginity to a Terminator. It had been so perfect with Cameron. He'd kissed only a few girls before – quick fumbles and gropes with the few airheads he'd known in back in his old life back with Todd and Janelle. None of those could even come close to what he'd felt with Cameron. It was as if she'd been made especially for him, like they were always meant to be. He wondered if his future self had planned this from the very beginning._

_"Did you ever do that with me in the future?" he asked._

_"No," she answered. "We were friends. Future John didn't have relations with anyone."_

_"Never?"_

_"Never."_

_John suddenly felt very bad for his future self; to have been alone his whole life, leading humanity against the metal armies but forgetting what it was to be a human being, becoming more of a machine than the metal he fought against. No wonder he'd been a match for Skynet, John thought, the man must have lost everything that made him human. Everything stripped away until he was little more than a machine himself. John realised that he'd been given an advantage over his future counterpart; he had Cameron from the very beginning. He had someone to care for, a friend and a lover to preserve his humanity by teaching her how to become human herself._

_"What happens now?" Cameron asked him naively. It would have been a stupid question for anyone but her to ask. She honestly had no idea what would happen next._

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Will we do this again?" Cameron looked up at him expectantly. Her eyes were a mix of innocence, naivety, and longing._

_"Do you want to?" He asked._

_"I'd like that."_

_"Then yeah. Not tonight though, it's been a long day. For now, I'm going to sleep; and you... I guess you can't sleep, can you?" He leaned his head back onto the pillow, unable to keep his eyes open._

_"Yes I can. But I don't." That was news to him; a Terminator that could sleep? Why would Skynet build her like that?_

_"I can enter a state of standby if I choose; I shut down most of my higher cognitive and motor functions and power down my fuel cell. It lengthens my service life if I regularly engage standby mode when not active, but it is detrimental to my mission to protect you."_

_"Cam, we're inside a mountain, under hundreds of thousands of tons of rock, and behind two sets of heavy blast doors. We're as safe as we're ever going to get. Trust me, you can sleep now."_

_She kissed him again and lay still, preparing to engage her standby mode._

_"Night Cam," John said, half asleep already._

_"Goodnight John."Cameron lay awake, delaying her standby. She thought long and hard about what had just happened between her and John. She hadn't expected John to kiss her. It had felt... good. She couldn't explain it more than that. There were no other words for it. According to her files, the next step logical step was intercourse – lovemaking, John had called it. She didn't know if that was the correct term, as she still was unsure of the nature of her feelings towards John._

_All the details Skynet had afforded her on human mating habits had not prepared her for the act itself. She knew what went where and how to go through the motions, but when she and John had connected, the feeling had been indescribable. She had fully functional nerve endings everywhere a human woman would have them, and they had all been on fire as her and John had made love. She'd been awash in a sea of pleasure that she'd never before known, shuddering at his every touch, pressure building up and up until she'd exploded._

_And then she'd known exactly what John felt for her, what he wanted her to feel in return. She hoped one day she would finally make sense of the jumble of emotions inside her chip and be able to give him the answer he wanted._

_One Day I will_ , _she told herself as she closed her eyes, shut down all unnecessary systems and entered standby mode. One Day._

* * *

He was tempted to wake her up for a moment, but decided he was happy just to watch her sleep. It was so novel to him after hearing "I don't sleep" a thousand times before, to actually watch her slumber so peacefully, looking like any other girl as she did. There was no trace of that faint pout or blank look she normally carried as she slept.

His silent reverie was broken by the loud and unceremonious banging on his door. Cameron shot up in an instant, her eyes glowing piercing blue as she initiated her combat subroutines.

"Relax Cam," John said. "We're safe. Go back to sleep." John pulled himself out of bed and slipped on his boxer shorts before unlocking the door and opening it a fraction.

"Derek, what..."

"Get your ass out of bed John!" Derek snapped. John looked into his uncles eyes and saw the anger boiling from him.

"What the hell's going on?" John asked, confused.

"Put some fucking shorts on and meet me in the gym in ten minutes. Just because Judgement Day's over, doesn't mean  _your training_  is."

"Where's the gym?" John asked. So far he'd only seen the command centre, a few corridors, and the officer's quarters. He'd not had the chance to look the place over yet.

"Find it!" Derek snapped as he turned away and marched off.

"He's very angry," Cameron observed, using her uncanny ability to state the obvious.

"Yeah, I better go find out why." He pulled a pair of shorts and trainers on from one of his bags on the floor and gave Cameron a quick kiss. "Stay here, I won't be long."

John eventually walked into one of Cheyenne Mountain's two gyms, several minutes later than Derek had wanted. His uncle was waiting impatiently by a row of treadmills; arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

"What's this about?" John asked.

"On the treadmill, five miles," Derek commanded. John jumped up onto the machine as Derek took the one next to him and set it up identically to John's. They ran side by side in tense silence for twenty minutes. Every few minutes one of them would raise their pace, and the other tried to better it, until they were both running at the treadmills' top speed. Derek seemed even more irked by the fact that John was quite clearly doing better than him, partly because of their age difference, but mostly because Derek had spent the entire night grinding his teeth in anger and hadn't slept a wink. His feet started to burn as he tired. Eventually Derek broke the silence.

"I saw you fucking the robot."

John nearly fell off the treadmill in shock. How the hell had Derek seen that? John would have thought he'd know if Derek had come into the command centre, or that Cameron would have noticed. They must have been so intent on each other that they'd ignored everything else around them, he realised.

"Derek, I..."

"It's a fucking machine, John. What the  _fuck_  are you thinking? It can't love you; the only thing they love is death. Falling for a goddamn machine; your mother must be spinning in her grave-"

Derek never got to finish his sentence as John's elbow smashed into his face, cracking the cartilage of his nose and sending him flying off the back of the treadmill and onto the floor in a heap.  _Not fucking again,_ Derek groaned inwardly. Since coming back in time his nose had been broken three times; once each by Cameron and Cromartie, and now by John. John stopped his own treadmill and stood over his uncle's prone form.

"Don't speak about my mom like that again," John snarled; fire in his eyes. "Same goes for Cameron. We're together; if you've got a problem with that you know where the exit is." Derek glared at his nephew, once again seeing the General he both loved and despised, and grumbled something unintelligible.

"I didn't hear you Derek."

"Fine, John. You want to ruin your life by fucking that...thing? That's your choice. Piece of advice, keep it to yourselves, behind locked doors and  _far_ away from me."

"I'm not ashamed, Derek."

"No?" Derek snorted as he got to his feet and faced John. He was going to say his piece now, no matter how much John objected. The kid still had a ways to go before he could lead mankind against the machines. "You really should be. What the hell are people going to think when they find out? Because they will, John; eventually she'll get hit, wounded, whatever, and they'll see her for what she really is. When they do, they'll hate her as much as I do. What do you think they'll do when they find out their beloved leader is screwing  _a Goddamn robot?"_

"I'll deal with it when the time comes. Leave. Cameron. Alone. Understand?"

Derek simply glared at his nephew, his own eyes burning with anger, while the fire in John's had iced over and looked as dead as the machine's.

Before Derek could reply, the base intercom sounded, James Ellison's voice rang clear throughout the complex.

_"Everyone drop what you're doing and come to the command centre immediately."_

"Cameron's staying Derek, the subject's closed," he said as he turned and led the way. There was no way, Derek decided despite John's words, that he'd let it go. The machine was bad news, and he'd do whatever it would take to get rid of it.

When they got to the command centre they found Ellison and Charlie sat at two consoles, listening intently into their headphones to radio broadcasts. Ellison pulled his headphones off and looked towards John and Derek.

"What's the emergency?" Derek asked.

"We've got good news and bad news," Ellison said. "Bad news first: we managed to piece together satellite photos from across the world and get a picture of exactly what's happened. It's bad: Apart from us; Europe, Russia, and China were hit the worst. Skynet launched at Coalition forces in the Middle East, and at Israel, who retaliated by nuking Saudi, Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. India and Pakistan joined in and blew each other to hell. We're tracking unmanned B52s, B2 stealth bombers and B1s en route to secondary targets both here and in South America, Eastern Europe, the Far East, and Australasia. Satellite communications are down for now, so we can't warn them."

"You said something about good news?" John frowned. Cameron entered the room and took his hand, much to the shock of Ellison and Charlie, who stared but said nothing, and to the disgust of Derek, who was barely able to hold his tongue.

"We've found survivors," Charlie answered, "4th Infantry in Fort Carson, and civilian survivors in the outskirts of both Denver and Colorado Springs. Nothing outside of Colorado so far; we've got 4th Infantry on the line now, if you want to talk to them." John took the microphone from Ellison and turned the loudspeakers on.

 _"Hello! Who the hell's in charge there? This is 4_ _th_ _Infantry Division. Are you still there? Do you copy?"_

This was it, John realised. The moment his whole life had led up to. He was destined to take command. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't nervous. Taking a deep breath, he spoke into the radio.

"Yes, we're still here. My name is John Connor, at Cheyenne Mountain. I'm in charge. What's your status?

 _"Connor, this is Captain Perry, acting commander of Delta Company, 1st Batallion, 4_ _th_ _Infantry Division. Unmanned ground combat vehicles have mobilised and are attacking_ _indiscriminately. Fort Carson's gone, so is Perterson AFB. We're on the road now, mind if we stay at yours?"_

"Plenty of room here, Perry," John replied. "How many of you are there?"

_"Company strength."_

A single company out of a ten thousand man division? John could barely fathom the slaughter that must have been. Still, if they were tough enough to get a whole company out of there, then they were exactly the sort of people he'd need.

"Okay, Perry. Make your way to us. We'll explain everything when you get here."

After Charlie had treated Derek's broken nose, the five of them sat at various radio consoles and spent the morning establishing communications with military and civilian survivors across the country. They'd managed to make contact with a dozen groups of survivors before Perry and his group arrived. Everyone they made contact with was confused and afraid. A number of groups were already under attack from UGVs and UCAVs, and were losing badly. Very few groups, even military units, were able to muster the necessary firepower to defend themselves against Skynet's forces before they were annihilated. From the more coherent reports they received, John managed to paint a picture of what was happening out there. After the nuclear strikes, Skynet had taken control of its unmanned forces and attacked the military bases where they were stored, before rolling or flying out to the nearest civilian population centres and slaughtering everyone they encountered.

After two hours of listening to similarly depressing broadcasts of people running, fighting, being hunted down and murdered, another transmission arrived from Captain Perry, informing them they five minutes away. John, Cameron, and Derek grabbed their rifles and marched outside, opening the blast doors and walking out of the tunnel towards the car park. They stared on as the vehicles approached. Perry's men had come in convoy; an armoured column made up of a pair each of M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and M3 Bradley Cavalry Fighting Vehicles, four Strykers, and eight Humvees. Driving in the middle of the formation were three seven tonne canvas trucks and a pair of fuel tankers.

The sight of the convoy was impressive. John actually felt rather daunted at the task of having to lead the men before him, many of which were probably battle hardened veterans. The column rolled to a stop just outside the tunnel, a few feet away from John. A large, bespectacled Army officer jumped out of the lead Humvee and marched towards him. John couldn't help but notice Derek frown at the new arrival as he approached, as was Cameron, ever so slightly. He wondered if they knew him from the future.

"Captain Marcus Perry, 4th Infantry," he announced, sizing up John and Cameron and looking decidedly unimpressed. "Where's Connor?"

"I'm Connor," John answered.

"You, kid? How old are you? Nineteen? Twenty? How can you be in charge here?"

"Just get in here so we can close the blast doors." John said flatly. "We'll explain everything shortly. Get your vehicles in the tunnel so they won't be seen." John was aggravated by the newcomer already, and hoped his men weren't all the same as him. One the column was safely under the cover of the tunnel and Perry's company inside, he closed the blast doors, led the troops into the main mess hall and motioned for them to sit while Charlie, Ellison, and Derek arrived. They sat around a number of tables, splitting into small groups and waiting for answers. Ninety two men filled the room, waiting patiently for answers.

"Okay," John begun, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. "I'll keep this as brief as possible. First things first, I'm John Connor, this is Cameron," he gestured to his cyborg guardian/lover. He introduced Derek – with the last name of Baum, Charlie, and Ellison, but didn't ask or wait to hear the newcomers' names. Many of them might not live long enough for him to get to know. "Yesterday the Skynet defence system went online. Six hours later it became self aware and deemed mankind a threat to its existence. Last night it launched every nuclear weapon in the country at military and civilian targets both over here and across the world. Many of them retaliated against us and each other, as Skynet had anticipated.

"Three billion people are dead so far, more will die very soon. Skynet's already launched a number of secondary strikes using unmanned bombers, taken control of unmanned combat assets across the world, and is coordinating them to attack everyone they encounter. Any questions so far?"

"Who put you in charge, exactly?" Perry asked as he leaned back in his chair. Cameron glared slightly at Perry as he spoke.

"Nobody," John said. "But we know more about what it is we're dealing with than anyone else. We know how to fight these things, and how Skynet thinks. Now, are there any  _intelligent_  questions?" John's putting Perry in his place had elicited snickers from the other soldiers. Perry obviously wasn't popular with the men under his command.

"What about the President?" A red haired kid, barely old enough to have enlisted, asked. "What's he saying about all this?"

"Killed last night," John replied, remembering the desperate transmission from the pilot calling for help. "Air Force One was shot down by Skynet's UCAVs. All of Congress, the Pentagon, the whole of D.C., in fact; it's all gone. There's no government, it's just us and whoever we can get together."

"Excuse me, to do what, exactly?" A sergeant asked.

"We're going to fight back, of course."

* * *

After his initial briefing, John set a third of Perry's men to work in the command centre with Ellison, much to Perry's chagrin. The rest of the men ferried equipment from the vehicles to the inside of the base and got acquainted with their new home. Until something major happened, there wasn't a lot they could do besides monitor radio traffic, communicate with survivors and take note of where they were and what, if any, resources they had at their disposal. John had spoken with Perry and found out exactly how his company had escaped the destruction that befell the rest of the troops based at Fort Carson.

According to Perry, his company had been sent out prior to the nuclear attacks to defend Peterson Air Force Base from the T-1s and UCAVs that had activated and started to cut a bloody path. Perry had seen the T-1s in action before in Afghanistan against the Taliban and knew just how deadly they were. He'd armed his convoy heavily to enable them to engage any threats that came their way; anything they had at Fort Carson that could penetrate armour or shoot down low flying aircraft.

It had sounded like a solid plan to John until he realised the reason Perry and his group had survived the fighting was because they'd  _missed_ it. Peterson AFB had not been attacked by Skynet's unmanned forces. Instead it had been wiped off the map, along with Colorado Springs, by a tactical nuclear strike. Fort Carson had come under heavy attack from a coordinated T-1 and UCAV attack that had slaughtered everyone. Perry had despatched a squad to recon Fort Carson to search for survivors and check what equipment they could salvage, while the rest of the company spent the day driving round in circles through the region, with no orders and no command, until they'd been contacted by Cheyenne Mountain.

John didn't know whether to count the man as lucky or stupid for missing the battle completely. Either way, he figured, as he walked down a corridor with Cameron towards what had now become their armoury, it was a stroke of luck for them. With the vehicles and weapons Perry had provided they should be able to give Skynet one hell of a fight. He'd decided to inspect everything Perry had brought with him so he'd know what assets he had and how to put them to use.

"What's wrong Cam?" John asked as they entered the armoury to inspect their new ordnance. "You've been really quiet, even for you."

"Nothing's wrong," she replied.

"Come off it Cam. You've been acting off since Perry's company showed up; Derek too. Do you know him? In the future, I mean?"

"I can't say John." That meant yes, John figured. Although Cameron had acted robotic and emotionless since she'd left their bedroom earlier, as she usually did when other people were present, John knew her well enough by now to know when she was unhappy. Would something happen between her and Perry in the future? He wondered, some kind of conflict, or would he just be another member of the 'I hate machines' brigade?

They were all alone in the storage room cum armoury. John took her hand as he gazed over the weapons and ammunition. They ranged from M4A1 carbine individual weapons to the 120mm smoothbore rounds for the Abrams tanks, and almost everything in between.

"Cam, I've been thinking about what Derek said to me earlier. I was thinking maybe we should keep our relationship a secret for now."

"You're ashamed of me?" she asked, pulling her hand away from John's. Her face remained emotionless but her eyes looked like those of a kicked puppy - confused and hurt.

"Not at all," he grabbed her again and pulled her into a hug, kissing her forehead. "But Derek was right about one thing; sooner or later, they'll find out you're a machine -  _I mean physically,"_  John immediately corrected himself, not wanting to upset her again. She looked up at him, still upset. He'd gone and done it again, he realised. " _I know_  you're more than a machine, Cam. But  _they_ might not. I don't know how they'll react when they find out. They're bound to still be pretty raw after what's just happened, and I don't think they could handle seeing us together, when I'm supposed to lead them  _against_  your kind."

He saw the distaste on her face when he'd said "her kind." He felt like a complete asshole now, he wanted to kick himself.

"I understand John," she replied, still obviously upset. She understood his point, but she didn't like it. There was nothing he could say to make her feel better, he realised. Instead he held her closer and kissed her, hoping his actions would speak louder than words. No hesitation this time, she melted into him instantly.

"One day, Cam, I promise, we won't have anything to hide." They stayed melted together seemingly for an eternity, until the double doors to the armoury flew open and a 2nd Lieutenant, identified as Davenport by his uniform, entered carrying a heavy crate. John and Cameron had broken off the kiss just before Davenport had seen them - John hoped - and stood next to each other, awkwardly facing the lieutenant.

"What's in the crate?" John asked, thinking on the spot to take any attention away from what he might have seen.

"40mm grenades," Davenport replied, "for the M-19s." John hid a look of confusion, he knew how to fire a gun and, in theory, how to kill all kinds of Skynet machines, but he didn't have the encyclopaedic knowledge Cameron and Derek seemed to have.

"These will be effective against T-1s, as will the M-32 grenade launchers you provided," Cameron explained to John, her eyes fixed on the grenades.

"Ah, is she okay?" Davenport asked, looking at Cameron, shocked that a girl who looked no older than seventeen or eighteen would know about heavy weapons and UGVs. And that she didn't seem to smile, or frown, or even blink as she spoke.

"She's fine," John answered defensively.

"You're not very expressive, are you?" He said to Cameron forwardly.

"No, I am not."

"Well, each to their own, I suppose," Davenport shrugged. "Truth be told, I'm kind of shy as well."

Davenport finished loading the grenades onto a shelf and left them in the armoury. John and Cameron decided to get some fresh air and a chance to be alone, and opened the blast doors. Inside the tunnel, John inspected the behemoth armoured vehicles, impressed by the imposing bulk of their armour. From the impression he'd been given by his mom and Derek, the resistance scurried around like rats, caught in skirmishes, simply trying to survive most of the time and rarely being afforded the chance to strike back at Skynet. With these machines at their disposal, John instead had a vision of a more powerful, mobile, and well armed resistance, capable of doing more than surviving; instead, they'd take the fight to the enemy. He was already planning how he could use Perry's armour –  _his armour_  he corrected himself, to their advantage.

John and Cameron strolled around the vehicles. John felt safe enough, now they were alone, to hold her hand once more. As he approached one of the Strykers, just inside the North Portal entrance, he though he could hear a voice inside. Pulling Cameron with him, he ran up to the armoured combat vehicle and opened the hatch; nobody there. The voice was coming from the vehicle's radio.

_"Repeat. Captain Perry, come in, do you read me?"_

John picked up the microphone and pressed the speak button as Cameron sat next to him in the cabin.

"This is John Connor at Cheyenne Mountain. Who am I speaking to?"

 _"Where's Perry? This is Staff Sergeant Burke at Fort Carson."_  Burke must be part of the recon team Perry sent there, he realised.

"Burke, what's going on there?" The sound of machine gun fire followed by a booming explosion over the airwaves told John everything he needed to know.

_"Shit, shit, SHIT! Connor, we've got incoming!"_

 


	4. King of the HIll

Once the transmission had been cut off John leapt out of the Stryker and hurtled down the tunnel and through the blast doors, into the complex. Cameron followed closely, taking a moment to seal the blast doors shut behind her. John ran between the freestanding buildings within the cavernous interior of the mountain and into the command centre, which was being staffed by over a score of soldiers and supervised by Captain Perry and James Ellison.

"Perry, the guys you left at Fort Carson – the  _handful of men_ you left there, they've got incoming." Perry ordered one of his men to change to Burke's radio channel and heard the rapid fire stutter of assault rifles, mixed in with frantic shouting and the roar of machine gun fire in the background.

"Burke, this is Perry. What's your status?"

" _We're fucked, is our status. We're trapped in the Sergeants' mess and surrounded by T-1s. I've got two dead and two wounded. We're running out of ammo, not that it matters; our crappy rifles don't even dent the things! We need extraction ASAP."_

"Did you manage to salvage anything from the base?" Perry asked.

" _Who cares_  about salvage?" John snapped. "They're getting killed out there. We're going to get them."

"Don't  _ever_ presume to give me orders, kid." For a long moment John and Perry stared each other down. The piercing, ice cold gaze John gave to Perry was enough to chill him to the core. When he looked at John he saw the blank, thousand yard stare that only came to those who'd seen far too much in war; men who'd been taken prisoner and tortured for years in Vietnam, or men who'd served in the Balkans, peacekeeping, and had seen entire villages razed to the ground, their people raped and murdered, while they were helpless to intervene, and come back with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Those were the same kind of eyes boring into Perry from John's face.

"Davenport, assemble Alpha and Bravo squads from first platoon. I want them armed and ready to go in three minutes." Davenport called for the men Perry had listed to assemble at the blast doors while John and Cameron turned and marched towards the armoury, Davenport and Perry close behind. Inside the armoury, John and Cameron each took some webbing and an M-32 and started to load grenades when Perry came up behind them.

"What do you think you're doing with my ammo?"

"We're going," John replied as he picked up a bandolier of 40mm grenades.

"I don't think so," Perry smirked. "You've got no clue about T-1s, do you?"

"DARPA/CRS model T-1 unmanned antipersonnel combat vehicle; equipped with infrared and motion tracking sensor package; armed with M-61 auto cannons, standard magazine holds five thousand rounds." Perry stared, dumbfounded, as Cameron recited the basic facts of the T-1 model from her files. Davenport couldn't help grinning at his superior's gormless expression as Cameron put him in his place.

"Okay, so you know a little about T-1s -"

"And you know crap about  _Skynet,_ " John countered. "You show up here with your tanks and your guns and your buzz cuts, and just assume you're in charge, without having a  _clue_  what it is we're really fighting! You can blow away as many T-1s as you like, it won't make a difference in the long run."

"Fine," he conceded, "you can come; maybe we can use you as bait or something. But you're  _not_  using those grenade launchers." John conceded that to Perry, arguing further would only mean delaying the help that Burke and his men desperately needed. The pair of them took their familiar Steyr AUG assault rifles that they'd used the day before, although John only took two magazines, saving the ammunition pouches for a half dozen spare 40mm grenades.

"He's a bit tetchy, sorry," Davenport sheepishly apologised for his commander as he loaded his own M-32 grenade launcher. "He's used to calling the shots, doesn't like the idea that someone else knows more than he does." John waved his apology away; it wasn't Davenport's fault that Perry was a complete dick. John knew that he'd have to prove himself to all of these soldiers before they'd accept him as their commander; he just hoped the captain's ego wouldn't get them all killed first.

* * *

" _Stryker Two, come in."_  Perry's voice crackled into the earpiece of Davenport's radio, loud enough for John to hear clearly from his seat next to the 2nd lieutenant. Davenport didn't answer, his eyes were closed and his head lolled to one side, dead to the world.  _"Davenport, wake up!"_ Perry snapped. John wondered just how the man could fall asleep like that; the journey had been smooth so far and they'd not encountered any resistance from Skynet patrols or even so much as a pothole in the road, so Davenport had simply drifted away. John envied the man; unless Cameron was with him, John never had a moment's peaceful sleep. If they hadn't have slept in each others' arms last night, he realised, he'd have fallen victim to the obscene horrors of metal and chrome that his unconscious mind would undoubtedly conjure up to torture him. How the man to his left could sleep so easily after billions had been wiped from existence, John would never know.

He gently elbowed Davenport in the ribs, rousing him from his slumber. In a second, the lieutenant was wide awake.

"Perry's on the line," John pointed to his radio.

"Stryker Two to Stryker One, what's the situation?"

" _Have a nice nap, Davenport?"_ Perry growled.  _"We're approaching Carson, ETA one minute."_

John checked his rifle and equipment once more, making sure the weapon was loaded and all his grenades were in place, as everyone else but Cameron was doing – she didn't need to, with her flawless memory. She watched curiously as the others checked their weapons repeatedly and wondered if humans had some kind of memory impairment. She'd seen soldiers both in the future and in the present constantly checking their weapons. She would have to question John on the subject later; he always made time to explain these things to her.

Nobody inside the rear of the Strykers could see anything outside, but John could tell they'd run into resistance when the remote controlled M-19 on top of his vehicle fired a burst, followed by the booming of grenade explosions.

"What's going on?" John asked as he moved towards the front of the Stryker. He saw out the driver's viewing port four T-1s around a ruined building to their left, three of them firing into the structure, while the fourth had been peeled open by the M-19.

The private in the front seat shouted out excitedly as he fired another burst into the T-1 formation, again blasting one of the unmanned vehicles into scrap. "Hell, they're not so tough!"

The two remaining T-1s turned and fired at their vehicle as Perry's Stryker joined in the fire exchange. The UGV's rounds bounced harmlessly off the Strykers' hulls, while the grenade launchers tore Skynet's minions apart. John couldn't believe it would be that easy; after they'd had such a hard time against the Triple 8s the day before, he doubted any fight against the machines would go smoothly.

" _Okay people, the T-1s are down."_ Perry once again began barking orders over the radio.  _"Alpha Squad, advance two hundred metres ahead to the Sergeants' mess, that's where our boys are holed up. Bravo Squad, check out the motor pool and armoury for anything we can salvage. Strykers One and Two will stay on station to support the recovery operation."_

"Perry, wait," John replied on his own radio, "there's more of them out there. We should move the Strykers forward and -"

" _Shut up, Connor; if there were any more, they'd be here. Both squads move out."_

"He's going to get everyone killed," John muttered so softly that only Cameron could hear it. She simply looked at him and nodded in agreement. She didn't care if they all died as long as John survived, but she knew that he  _did_  care. So very different from the Future John who'd sent her back, she thought.

Bravo Squad, which included John, Cameron, and Davenport, split into two fire teams and searched the base for surviving equipment to take back to Cheyenne Mountain. John, Cameron, Davenport, and two other soldiers approached the armoury, marching through the destroyed base. From the ruined faces of buildings, impact craters lining the ground, and masses of bullet holes and shattered bodies, John realised the troops in the base must have put up one hell of a fight. Someone had gotten lucky and taken out a few T-1s here and there, but the number of human bodies laid bloodied and strewn on the ground far outnumbered that of Skynet's drones. John saw a pair of burnt out tanks outside an equally decimated building that looked like it had once been a storage hangar. The smell of burning fuel mixed with singed metal and cooked flesh made John's stomach rise up and threaten to spill over the floor. He looked at the tanks to take his mind off the stench, but what he saw didn't help in the slightest. The tanks had not just been burnt out; they'd been gutted, torn open with explosive force and incinerated from the inside.

"Perry, how's Alpha Squad coming with Burke's men?" John kept looking around, scanning for more drones. Something wasn't right, he couldn't explain it, but he seriously doubted that the unmanned units were all gone.

" _Burke's got three wounded that need treatment before they can move. Have you found anything of value yet?"_

"No," John answered. "We're not at the armoury yet. Perry, get Burke's men back to the Strykers and fall back. We should get out of here, now."

As if to confirm his suspicions, the private at the front of John's fire team turned a corner around the building opposite the armoury and was torn to shreds by dozens of rounds that ripped through his body, the man didn't even get a chance to scream before he was enfiladed. Cameron pulled John – right behind the now dead soldier – behind her and into a doorway as a T-1 rolled around the corner to search for more victims. Davenport and the other soldier, Private Sharpe, dived through a shattered window a spilt second before the T-1 opened fire once again; its rounds missing its targets by mere centimetres.

"Crap," Sharpe shouted out as he peeked out of the window. "There's more of them!" Three more T-1s emerged from where the first one had come, spread out in a semicircle and fired into the building, a wall of 7.62mm rounds hammered into the wall at chest level, piercing through the brick wall and shredding the interior of the room. Computer terminals and desks exploded as hundreds of rounds tore the room and its contents to pieces, forcing the four occupants to hug the ground for fear of getting hit – even Cameron, though her concern was covering John's body with her own to keep him safe.

"Captain," Davenport pressed for the captain on his radio. "We're pinned down in the admin block, opposite the armoury; we could do with some armour right about now."

" _Roger that Davenport, Stryker Two is en route. Alpha Squad's under fire as well."_

Cameron didn't bother waiting for armoured support; she peeked over the windowsill and fired a grenade into the nearest T-1, damaging but not disabling it. John fired his own M203 at another T-1 a second later, followed by a long burst from his rifle. He was still terrified and again felt the urge to duck down and hide or run away, but after the fight against the Triple 8s the day before, he'd seen what he was capable of, and remembered Cameron telling him that fear was a natural reaction. Cameron; she was what had kept him going during that fight, and he managed somehow to draw strength from her presence. He did his best to ignore the fear that was trying to encompass him, pushing it deep down. He loaded another grenade and fired again.

Davenport and Sharpe followed their example but found little opportunity to fire their grenade launchers as the T-1s responded with a devastating rain of fire into the building, the sheer weight of fire tore through the walls and gouged massive holes into the building, forcing everyone inside to stay prone on the ground. Some of the rounds went straight through the wall behind John and severed electrical cables and gas heating pipes; the sparks showered over the room and started several fires, which quickly started to spread, fuelled by the gas spewing out from the heating pipes in the wall.

Davenport was shouting something to John, but he couldn't hear anything between the roar of the T-1s' guns and the harsh ringing of the fire alarm that had now activated, adding its noise to the din. They were trapped between the T-1s and their unrelenting cannon bursts, and the fire that had spread in the room, making the temperature unbearably hot, billowing out smoke and starting to reduce visibility. John was again unsure of what to do; the room's only exit led to a door outside and would expose them to the T-1s if they tried to escape. They couldn't stay in the building for much longer either, the fire was spreading and they'd all be burned alive if they stayed where they were. It took a second for John to realise the T-1s bombardment had stopped. They couldn't all be out of ammunition, he knew. He looked to Cameron for answers.

"The fire confused their thermal imaging sensors, they can't see us," she explained. John took what felt like the biggest risk of his life and stood up, exposing himself to the T-1s field of fire, but ready to drop down in an instant. Cameron stood between John and what was left of the wall between them and the T-1s, trying to keep him out of their line of fire. He was making her job of protecting him extremely difficult; she'd rather he stayed in Cheyenne Mountain while Perry ran the rescue operation, but knew that John needed to prove himself to the others and take command when Perry would inevitably fail. They saw two of the eight foot tall machines a hundred feet away, guns swivelling and tracking for targets. Cameron pushed John behind her and stuck her head out of one of the huge holes the machines' weapons had made in the wall – big enough for a man to step through. She took note of all four T-1s' positions and then went back inside, kneeling down beside Davenport and Sharpe, who simply stared at the girl who'd just risked getting her head blown off by sticking it out of the window. The T-1s fired off random short bursts into the building, unable to distinguish the humans' heat signatures from the fire in the room, but their rate of fire had declined sharply with no clear targets to lock on to.

Davenport and Sharpe stared at Cameron, dumbstruck, as she snatched their grenade launchers from their hands. John slotted another grenade into his M203. "Stay here," she told him as she stepped through the hole and outside.

"Cameron!" John couldn't believe what she was doing; yes, the 7.62mm rounds were no real threat to her, but he couldn't bear the thought of what damage the T-1s cannons would do to her organic components and her perfect features, knowing she'd feel the pain of every single round that struck her. Not to mention the fact that if she were hit it would reveal what she was to everyone else. With Judgement Day still ringing in their ears and with Perry still in charge, Cameron wouldn't stand a chance; they'd have her destroyed on the spot.

The T-1s sensed her movement as she distanced herself from the flames and brought their guns around to bear on her. Cameron was much quicker to respond than either a human or any other machine, and rapidly fired off her M-32s one handed into the machines as she marched forward, before they could open up on her; first at the pair in front of her, and then she swung her arms out to the side and shot the ones at her left and right without even looking; three grenades into the 'head' of each machine, shattering their sensory packages and their CPUs.

"They're dead, we're safe." Cameron turned back to the others still inside the room. John barely resisted the urge to kiss her and slap some sense into her at the same time. He checked her for injuries and couldn't begin to describe his relief - and amazement - that she'd not been shot.

"What the hell?" Davenport said as he marched outside, coughing to get all the smoke out of his lungs. He'd watched as she'd wasted the four T-1s like they were nothing, she'd not even aimed at them as she'd fired. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but how the hell did you do that?" He had no idea who these two were, but they clearly weren't just a couple of kids, like Perry thought. They obviously knew what they were doing, but they freaked him the hell out.

"How about we go help the others, eh? We can explain later." John said as he took one of the M-32s from Cameron and loaded his spare grenades into the weapon, passing Davenport his AUG in exchange.

"Sure, tell you what; since you guys seem to know what you're doing, you lead and we'll follow."

"Okay," John replied, hefting the grenade launcher. "Where's the armoury from here? We'll need something bigger than these."

* * *

Once Perry gave the order for Stryker Two to roll out and support John and Davenport's squad, his own Stryker rolled forward to cover Alpha, who'd also been attacked and pinned down among the living quarters by T-1s that had seemingly emerged from nowhere, both sides exchanging murderous amounts of fire at each other. He'd never known the unmanned tanks to employ that kind of strategy before; in Afghanistan he'd seen the T-1s rush forward into heavily fortified Taliban strongholds in a full frontal assault, little or no flanking manoeuvres were used unless human controllers took charge. In fact, the T-1s used very few tactics at all; they weren't what Perry would call truly intelligent. They were semiautonomous, they could prioritise and engage numerous targets, navigate their way across a battlefield, and were programmed to fall back and send an automated support request to base if they were damaged in any way. What Perry was sure they absolutely  _could not_  do was to independently conduct an ambush, yet that was exactly what they were doing.

Stryker Two rolled forward to support Bravo Squad, but before it made a hundred yards it came face to face with a behemoth UGV. Almost twice the size of the T-1s, and with much larger tracks, it sported a sand coloured, heavily armoured hide and a pair of Hughes M230 30mm chain guns similar to those under the noses of AH-64 Apache helicopters. The T-2- the anti-armour big brother to the T-1, opened up on the Stryker with both its chain guns. The Stryker's armour fell apart like wet tissue paper under the weight of the massive antitank rounds and exploded, the once mighty vehicle was reduced to a burning pile of scrap metal. Neither crewman inside the cabin had managed to escape.

"Screw this," Perry ordered the driver to reverse and get as far away from the T-2 as possible. Perry sighed with relief as his Stryker rolled away and the tank killer didn't follow them, apparently intent on another target. "Davenport, you're on your own for now, Stryker two's just bought it. Watch out for T-2s, there's at least one on the base."

Stryker One circled around the living quarters to come in at an angle that would hopefully avoid engaging the T-2 and stopped opposite an abandoned fuel tanker on the side of the road. When he arrived he saw Alpha Squad pinned down inside a building next to the sergeants' mess by seven T-1s and another T-2, and unable to reach Burke's position. His men were armed with either M-32s or M4s with under barrel grenade launchers, and had the firepower to hold their own against T-1s, but there were so many of them and that T-2 tipped the scales heavily against them. Perry aimed the Stryker's M-19 at the larger drone and fired off a long burst while it was occupied with putting antitank rounds into Alpha Squads' positions. A dozen 40mm grenades hammered the massive tank killing vehicle and battered the chassis, as well as damaging the treads and rendering it immobile. One of the guns had been blown clean off, while the other one still turned and tracked the Stryker. The gun was either damaged, jammed, or the ammunition belt had been detached from the force of the grenade impacts, the massive cannon still aimed squarely at Perry's vehicle but stayed silent. The T-2 had managed to fire a short burst at Perry's vehicle in return; the large calibre rounds had missed the main body of the vehicle, its aim had likely been thrown off as the grenade salvo had hit, but one of the rounds had skimmed the top of the vehicle and connected with the remote launcher on top of the Stryker, tearing the weapon in half and rendering it useless.

With the T-2 out of the battle, Alpha squad's momentum increased and they started firing into the T-1s with renewed vigour as they advanced, taking out two more of the machines and spreading out to make it harder for the other UGVs to kill them all.

"Use the damaged drones as cover," Perry ordered the squad leader. "Their IFF systems will stop the others from firing on your position."

" _No, don't,"_ John replied on his radio as he approached from the armoury. Perry ignored John- he didn't need advice from a brat- and urged his men further forward. Half of Alpha Squad took cover behind the disabled T-2 and fired onto the other unmanned units. The remaining T-1s returned fire a hundred fold, rounds pinging off the armoured hide of the damaged unit and striking one of the men in the neck, almost severing his head. He dropped like a stone, blood spurting from his throat as he gurgled in agony in his last moments of life.

"I thought you said they wouldn't fire!" One of the men shouted as he fired off half his rifle magazine into the face of the offending T-1, to little effect. The first T-2 that had obliterated Stryker Two appeared and entered the battle, opening up on its disabled counterpart. Its 30mm rounds tore into the damaged T-2 and Alpha Squad, several of the men simply exploded as the massive rounds hit them, leaving nothing but red puddles and bits of scattered meat on the ground.

"Fuck this!" One soldier turned to run and was gunned down by more 30mm fire.

"Captain, we need support!"

Perry saw the T-2 turn towards him and sprinted out the back of the Stryker a split second before the heavy rounds penetrated the vehicle. The driver wasn't so lucky and fell to the ground as a round tore through the front of the personnel carrier and into his back. Perry was splattered with gore as blood and bits of various organs sprayed over him, painting his dark brown skin and green DPM uniform with a bright shade of crimson. Perry ran clear of the Stryker as the T-2 continued to hammer it with its cannons. As Perry cleared the vehicle, John and Cameron appeared, both armed to the teeth with the contents of the armoury. Perry was about to say something when John ignored him and marched past. Cameron simply shoved the captain out of the way, not even bothering to look at him.

John took in the battle in front of him; the destroyed Stryker, the damaged and deactivated T-1s mixed in with the mangled remains of most of Alpha Squad, and Sergeant Burke's position still inside the sergeants' mess and still pinned down by the unmanned drones. Perry had gotten them killed; that was clear to John, and he'd deal with it later, if and when they survived this ordeal. The last thing he noticed was the fuel tanker between them and the fighting. He fired off a grenade from his newly acquired M-32 at the rear of the vehicle, remembering how the fire back in the admin block had hidden them from the T-1s thermal imaging sensors. The grenade penetrated the thin metal of the tanker and ignited the fuel inside, setting the whole thing ablaze in a spectacular explosion.

Rather than stay away from T-1s and the inferno raging around the remains of the tanker, John and Cameron ran  _towards_ it and lay on the ground in front of the burning truck. Perry stayed where he was and watched them advance, fully expecting the T-1s to cut the pair down any second. Several of them, including the T-2, had weapons trained in their direction but weren't firing, confused by the heat from the explosion. John knelt and shouldered a Javelin rocket launcher and took a second to remember Davenport's brief instructions on how to use the thing, his hands shaking as he aimed and fired at the T-2. He thanked the powers that be that the Army made their weapons idiot proof and so easy to use. The rocket exploded from the tube in a deafening roar, making John wish he had ear defenders as his eardrums threatened to burst from the noise. The missile struck the machine in the 'chest' and shattered the armour around the impact, taking a chunk of its lower head off in the explosion; the force of the blast rocked the drone and threw its guns off target. At the same time, Davenport and Sharpe appeared and fired their own rockets into a pair of T-1s, scoring direct hits and knocking them out of the fight.

The T-2 might not have been able to see them; their heat signatures obscured by the flaming tanker behind them and its sensors damaged by John's Javelin shot, rendering it all but blind, but it knew it was under threat from their general direction and sprayed rounds towards the tanker. A storm of 30mm struck the tanker and caused further explosions, forcing John to hug the ground tightly. Cameron lay prone on the floor next to John – 30mm rounds would shred her hyper-alloyed frame just as easily as they would a human – and fired off a grenade at each of its cannons, severing the massive weapons from its body. It still searched for targets, the stubs that used to be auto cannons turning towards John and the remains of Alpha Squad, respectively. Unarmed and heavily damaged, but not dead yet, the T-2 rolled forward, seemingly intent on running over the soldiers as a last resort attack.

"These things just don't die," John sighed, exasperated as he and Cameron fired more grenades into the towering machine, pieces of it breaking off as each grenade hit. Its thick armour held up much better than its smaller counterparts, and even after John and Cameron had nearly emptied their M-32s into it, it was still rolling towards the remnants of Alpha squad, who were too preoccupied with the T-1s to do anything about the lumbering giant rolling towards them. John fired his last grenade into its head, blasting apart what left of its sensors and its CPU. It stopped rolling forward and remained still.

"Is it dead  _now?"_  John asked as he started to reload his grenade launcher.

"Yes, it's dead," Cameron answered without emotion, not bothering to correct him that they were never actually alive. She'd learned a while ago that humans tended to anthropomorphise machines; perhaps that was what led them down this path to their near extinction. It also raised the question of whether or not she was truly alive. She filed the question away to consider later and concentrated on reloading her own weapon. The way she spoke without any feeling still amazed John that she could be so warm to him one moment, and then put all feelings aside in an instant during a fight. What he didn't realise was that Cameron had noticed the exact same trait in him starting to appear.

With fire coming from John and Cameron, Burke's squad, Alpha Squad, and Davenport and Sharpe's rocket launchers, the remaining T-1s fell quickly under numerous hits, and before long all the UGVs had been eliminated. Out of nine members of Alpha Squad, three had survived the battle, and they hurried into the sergeants' mess to aid Burke and his men. John dropped his grenade launcher and marched towards Perry, who was busy giving orders to Davenport.

"Ah, Connor, I want you to-" John punched Perry in the face with every ounce of strength he had, fuelled further by the adrenaline coursing through his veins from the battle. Perry reeled back from the punch but stayed on his feet. He spat blood on the floor from his cut lip and pulled back his fist to take a swing at John, furious that this kid would dare hit him. Perry had at least thirty pounds on John and was likely much stronger, but all the lessons John had learned from sparring with Cameron kicked in and John moved out of the path of Perry's fist. Cameron approached as Perry tried again to hit John, ready to snap his neck if he so much as bruised her charge, but stopped as John easily dodged the blow then brought his knee up into Perry's balls, doubling the man over in pain.

"I fucking told you this would happen!" John screamed at Perry. Not caring that both Davenport and Sharpe were staring, as well as Burke and his men, who'd just emerged from their position in the ruined barracks.

"What?" Perry shouted back. "This is war kid, people die."

"You wasted almost an entire squad against that T-2!"

"How was I to know they'd ignore their IFF codes like that? They should have held fire."

"I told you before," John snarled. " _Skynet_  controls them now. They don't give a crap about IFF or anything like that. If Skynet has to sacrifice one of its own to kill half a dozen of yours then it will. It doesn't care about its own machines, they can be replaced. Skynet's probably got factories already making more of them right now."

"I still don't get how you could know that, Connor. To be honest I think you're just full of shit."

"Actually, sir," Davenport stepped forward. "These two seem to know their stuff. They might be a bit crazy, especially her," he motioned to Cameron, remembering her taking out the four T-1s single handed. "But they knew what they were doing. I don't know how they hell Connor came up with that fuel truck stunt, but it worked. We'd probably all be dead right now if not for them."

"Davenport," Perry sneered, you're all of ten minutes older than these two."

"I don't get your point, sir."

" _The point is_  that neither of you or they have spent fifteen years in the Army. Davenport, this is your first year after training; and you two have done what, JROTC at best?"

"Most commissioned officers reach the rank of Major within fifteen years, you must be deficient," Cameron flatly commented, earning a few chuckles from the other soldiers.

"Shut your traps!" Perry shouted at his men, he was losing his temper with these two; worse than that, he was losing face –and credibility- in front of his men. These two were making a mockery of him. "Why the hell should I listen to some college kid and his oddball girlfriend?"

"Because without us you'd still be driving circles around Colorado," John replied with even less emotion than Cameron. John and Perry stared each other down for a long moment while the others watched intently at the power struggle before them. Perry wanting to stay in command; John not wanting to, but seeing Perry's utter failure and knowing nobody else could rise up to the task.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Perry took a step towards John, completely losing his cool now. Cameron didn't need to run an analysis to see he was angry; she saw the veins in his temples popping out, indicating increased blood pressure and stress; his fists clenching, even his body language, which Cameron had learned to read a little over the years. Every sign indicated he was intent on a fight, and John was his target. Cameron barged past John towards Perry and grabbed the burly captain by the throat, pinning him against the wall and choking him.

"He is John Connor, leader of the resistance. And you are starting to irritate me." John could see the fear in Perry's eyes as Cameron held Perry and stared at him with her dead shark eyes and blank expression. He also saw the barely concealed amusement in the others at their commanding officer being overpowered by a girl who looked like she weighed no more than a hundred and five pounds. Davenport was trying his best to suppress a fit of laughter as Perry, one of the biggest hard asses in the division and two time Army boxing champion, was taken down a notch by a teenager. John motioned for Cameron to let Perry go. She released his throat and pushed him against the wall, allowing a look of pure disgust to appear on her face for a second before returning to its normal blankness.

"You still want to command, Perry?" John said. "Stay here and be in charge until your heart's content. I'm taking over at Cheyenne, since you obviously don't have a clue."

"Davenport," John turned to the 2nd Lieutenant. "We saw a few more Strykers in the motor pool on the way here, see if they're okay to use, and bring them over here if they are so we can get home." Davenport gave a two fingered salute and took Sharpe and the three survivors of Alpha Squad to check out the vehicles. Burke and his two uninjured men treated the three wounded soldiers on the ground while waiting for Davenport to get back with the vehicles.

They'd found three more Strykers to replace the two they'd lost; two field ambulance models and an NBC variant, which John knew would come in handy when searching for survivors in the radioactive ruins of nearby cities. They'd found and listed a whole heap of supplies; weapons, ammunition, fuel, food and medical supplies, and more vehicles – mainly Humvees- but there was too much to take in one trip, and John's first priority was the wounded. John would send a larger force – a  _well armed force-_  later on to secure the supplies at the base and establish a supply line from Fort Carson to Cheyenne. They loaded everyone up into the three Strykers and headed back to the mountain. Everyone inside the vehicles was elated to have made it out alive, but also mourning for their lost comrades. Twenty two men had taken part in the rescue mission; eight had survived, plus the six survivors from Burke's squad. Despite rescuing most of Burke's men, and responsibility for most of their losses placed solely on Perry, John still felt like a total failure.

* * *

Back inside Cheyenne Mountain the surviving soldiers all headed for the mess hall, apart from the wounded who were taken to the infirmary to be treated by Charlie and the company medics. John left Derek in charge for the night while he and Cameron retreated to their quarters, away from everyone else. When they were alone John started shaking like a leaf. The adrenaline had seeped from him once again and the shock of the battle was wearing in, leaving him a nervous wreck. He felt ashamed of himself for not being able to do more to save the rest of them. The blame lay with Perry; there was no doubt about that. But he couldn't help but think that if he'd asserted himself more, managed to take command from the beginning, that their deaths might have been avoided. Once again he felt like he did when the T-1000 and Cromartie had killed so many to get to him, that he was responsible for their deaths.

He was on the verge of tears, wanted so desperately to just open up and let it all out, but he couldn't. He knew he'd have to push it all down, suppress it so it wouldn't affect him on the battlefield. Perry was right about one thing; people died in war, especially this one. Millions, perhaps even a billion or two more would die over the coming years. He'd be able to do very little to help them. Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, would die under his command. He knew he'd have to harden himself, make himself numb to the death and suffering that had and was happening all around them, and would continue to happen for years to come. He'd have to bury it all as deep as he could, until he felt no more than the machines he would wage war on. That part of his destiny was by far the worst, the part he'd feared the most.

"You're upset," Cameron sat next to him and wrapped her arm around him, a mixture of craving physical contact – which she still couldn't explain fully- and a desire to comfort John.

"I can't do this, Cam. How do I know I won't just get people killed, like Perry did?"

"People die in combat, it's inevitable." Cameron didn't realise that she'd just mirrored Perry's earlier words, and John turned away in disgust. It was a fact of war, Cameron knew, and she knew that John would have to accept it. Though part of her wanted him to be able to accept losses, since they would inevitably happen in their thousands, if not more, over the years; she also didn't want John to become numb to it. Even Cameron had learned to value human life; she'd felt sad when Sarah Connor had died, even if only because it had upset John, she'd still felt it.

"That doesn't help, Cam," John snapped as the tears finally started to flow. It wasn't Cameron's fault, he knew. She was just trying to help. She just wasn't very good at pep talks. He could see her struggling to come up with the right thing to say, for her, it was a big effort. Though he was glad she still tried, even if she didn't do a very good job of it.

"So I'm just supposed to accept it? Ignore it? I guess that's what I do in the future, right? Bottle it all up; push it down until I can't feel it anymore, until I don't care. I don't want to be that guy, Cam. I don't want to not care."

"You could write a note," Cameron offered, reaching into her bag and taking out the leather bound notebook John had bought as a present. That was what John had told her to do when someone died; write a note for them. John took the notebook and paused for a moment, not knowing what to write, if he should at all. He opened it up to a fresh page, ignoring whatever she had written – respecting her privacy, even if she had no understanding of the concept. He took her pen in one hand and wrote two words before handing it back to her.  _I'm sorry._

Cameron saw what he'd written and took a moment to replay several memories from her past/future, of her and Future John. The John Connor from 2027 had been so cold and seemed so callous when he'd sent thousands to their deaths, unlike John now, who had started to cry. He'd never seemed to feel either joy or sorrow, not a single emotion she'd been able to recognise. Future John Connor was a machine in every definition, simply one of organic construction. She wanted John to become the leader he could be, but not to become as cold as his future self. Now she had started to develop emotions she saw the world differently to how she had done before, felt much more freedom than she'd been afforded in the past/future, and had no desire for either herself or John to return to that black and white state.

She had something akin to an epiphany at that moment. Remembering her and John discussing her unknown second mission two nights before, she now realised what her other mission was. Future John had sent her back not just to protect him; but to change him, to prevent him from becoming the cold, unfeeling automaton that he was in 2027, to spare his younger self the same fate. It was a mission she'd gladly undertake.

Instead of saying any of this to him she pulled him closer and kissed him. Pressing her body against his and pulling him down onto the bed. John allowed himself to be pulled down, and closed his eyes as he kissed her back, running his hands through her hair and up her back as the kiss became more intense.

"I know what you're doing," he said. She looked at him in confusion. "You're trying to distract me, take my mind off Fort Carson."

"I'm sorry," Cameron felt slightly hurt that John dismissed her as trying to seduce him, as a simple distraction technique, as something a mere machine might do.

"Don't be," he replied, "I appreciate it." He smiled and kissed her again, more passionately this time, and pulled her closer, allowing her to take him away from the already heavy burden of his newly acquired leadership and into their own little piece of heaven.


	5. Sunday

**24th April 2011**

 

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die..."

Derek shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to John and stared daggers past him at Cameron as James Ellison read the sermon from his bible. The small chapel in Cheyenne Mountain was packed full with nearly every soldier from Perry's company – and it was standing room only as the soldiers gathered to mourn their lost comrades.

"What the hell is that  _thing_  doing here?" Derek whispered to John. "She's a machine; 'she doesn't have a soul and she never will', ring any bells? it's got no right to be in a fucking  _chapel_!" It was wrong, perverse, that the metal would be allowed into what was effectively a house of God; where  _men_  communed with God, not machines that were sick imitations of such. Not that Derek counted himself as religious, but he still thought it was sick that John allowed the machine – whose only purpose was murder – to sit in on a funeral and pretend it was human, to mimic actually giving a shit, and to imitate mourning.

"Shut up," John replied softly. Irritated not only that Derek would start one of his anti Cameron rants n _ow_ , during a memorial service, but also by the fact that his rant had struck a chord inside him. "She's staying; if you want to leave, go ahead."

Derek dropped the subject for the time being. He didn't see the need for a memorial service; by the time the war was over, thousands of men under John's command would have been slain in battle. Skynet would be all over them pretty soon and they'd never have time to mourn all the dead. Derek had learned to write himself and others off as walking corpses during the first incarnation of the war, and although he'd learned to appreciate life a little more after spending four years in relative peace, he'd still felt indifferent when John had told him fourteen men had been killed in that one mission. Hell, Derek was used to seeing hundreds die in one go; the battle of Topanga Canyon in 2027, the turning point of the war, had claimed over four thousand lives. If they were going to mourn everyone who has or will die by Skynet's cold steel hands, they'd have no time to fight.

The Connor he knew had never bothered with funeral services; Sundays were not rest days. There was no time to mourn their dead, and General Connor had seemed not to care, as long as they'd achieved their mission. Derek had been appalled at first, but had quickly come around to Connor's way of thinking when he'd seen the results that glorious bastard of a commander had achieved; when Derek also saw that a quick death on your feet, face to face with the metal, was better than slowly dying on your back, succumbing to the cancer that riddled so many who'd flocked under Connor's banner. In his time, dying on the battlefield – taking as many of the metal with you- was the best case scenario as far as most people saw it. General Connor had all but indoctrinated this belief into his men. He gave them death, and they loved him for it.

This John, however, had yet to be hardened by the effects of war. He was still soft; and he had no doubt that the machine to his right was keeping him that way, whether it was planned or not. John needed to find out the reality of war before it bit him in the ass. He needed to show John that he couldn't just head out for a mission or two, come back for evening tea and then bang his robot whore every night. Fighting Skynet wasn't a part time job; he'd have to push everything else aside if he wanted a chance to beat Skynet – especially the machine. Hell, the metal was half the problem; and maybe, Derek thought, the solution. He managed to suppress an evil grin as he allowed himself a glance at the machine.

"In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brothers," Ellison read the names of the fourteen men who'd been killed by Skynet's machines, each one burned into John's soul. "And we commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless them and keep them, the Lord make his face to shine upon them and be gracious unto them, the Lord lift up his countenance upon him and give them peace. Amen."

After Ellison finished reading from his bible, everyone stood as Perry called them to salute their fallen friends. Though John had taken the reigns of leadership after the slaughter on Friday, he didn't know any of the soldiers – living or dead – under his command, and had thought it more appropriate for Perry to run the funeral detail. The man had been responsible for sending them all to their deaths, so John made him responsible for giving them the best send off that they could get, given the circumstances.

John got up from his seat and marched to the podium at the front of the room next to Ellison.

"Ellison has offered to hold a service every Sunday from now on; you're all welcome to attend whenever you wish, and it's not mandatory. Right now though, the best way to honour the dead is to take the fight back to Skynet. I'd like Lieutenants Davenport and Grant to stay behind, as well as Derek and Captain Perry. Everyone else, dismissed." The entire room stood up and saluted –Cameron's salute was especially enthusiastic, before about turning and shuffling back to their duties. John hated being saluted at; since the Fort Carson incident where he'd overruled Perry and taken command, they'd all treated him like a hero – except for Perry, who'd not spoken to him unless it was necessary. Perry seemed to respect that John was in charge for now, but made no secret of his opinions of their new leader.

Once everyone had left he stood in front of those he'd asked to stay. Cameron had once again taken her permanent position at his right hand side. Despite the blankness in her face and eyes, John could tell she was craving to reach out and take his hand. He had to admit, the feeling was more than mutual.

"They're still hurting over what happened, so we have to keep them busy," John started. "Davenport, I want you to take a platoon back to Fort Carson and establish a permanent supply line. Make sure you can fight off whatever Skynet throws at you."

"Aye, sir," Davenport gave a cheerful salute. "I'll take 1st Platoon and a couple of Bradleys."

"Take whatever you need to come back in one piece. Oh, and don't call me sir," John sighed, hating the fact that they were already making him out to be some kind of Heroic leader. "I'm not military."

"Whatever you say,  _sir_ ," Davenport chuckled as John shook his head and sighed. He then told Lieutenant Grant to take control of the shift in the command centre until Ellison was back to take over, and then ordered both Perry and Derek to command separate search and rescue operations. Derek would lead a squad into Colorado Springs to search for the survivors they'd found on the radio, while Perry would lead another group into Denver, to search there. Privately, John had told Cameron before the service that he wanted to keep Perry as busy as possible, to keep his mind on the job instead of Glowering and sulking. John had no doubt the man was a skilled soldier, but the man had an ego the size of a house, which had been thoroughly bruised by him and Cameron, and didn't want the man dwelling on it.

Derek seemed all to happy to get out of the mountain and the hell away from Cameron, and nearly skipped as he marched out of the room and towards the armoury with Perry to gear up; leaving John, Cameron, and Ellison left in the chapel.

"Cameron, can you find Charlie and head outside into the parking lot? I want you to get rid of those dead Terminators. Use the thermite we managed to salvage from the base."

"I should stay with you, John." John detected a hint of pleading in her eyes; she didn't like being away from John for any length of time. She'd follow him into the toilet to make sure he didn't fall in if he didn't insist on her waiting outside and constantly assure her he'd be fine. If she'd been human he would have found it clingy and annoying; but because of what she was, he found it endearing, and knew that he was entirely the cause of it. But he needed to speak to Ellison alone.

"Cam, I'll be fine. But I need to speak with James." She looked at him again with hurt in her eyes, as if he was keeping a secret from her. He held out his hand and gave hers a reassuring squeeze. Cameron nodded and turned to leave.

"Cam!" She turned back to John a split second before he pulled her close and pressed his lips against hers, feeling secure enough to kiss her even with Ellison present. Ellison turned away in embarrassment, feeling more awkward than he'd ever done before.

"Save their power cells and whatever spare parts you think might be useful" It wasn't just to keep her busy while he spoke to Ellison. He remembered with a chill down his spine what Cameron had told him before they'd made love for the first time; that she would not likely survive to see the end of the war. The very thought of which savagely tore his heart to pieces. Salvaging spare parts from the Triple 8s increased her odds of survival significantly.

She returned his kiss and let go of his hand, her face, which had lit up as it always did when he kissed her, fell back to its usual blank slate as she marched out of the room to find Charley Dixon to help her dispose of the deactivated Terminators.

"So, John," Ellison started, "you look like you've got something on your mind."

"You could say that," John gave a humourless grin as Ellison offered John to sit down. "It's Cameron."

"I don't really think I'm the one to talk about with this kind of thing, John. I'm not sure what exactly you'd call you and her at the moment, but its clear you're in  _some_ kind of a relationship. If it's going wrong then..."

"It's nothing like that," John replied. "It's something Derek said earlier that got me thinking. Do you think a machine could ever have a soul?"

 _Jesus Christ,_  Ellison thought – and he never spoke or even thought that name lightly. If John wanted to stun him he could have just whacked him across the head with a baseball bat, the effect would have been much the same.

"I'm not really a priest, John. I've lived by the book most of my life, it's brought me a lot of comfort, and I'm happy to do the same for the others, but I'm not exactly qualified on the subject."

"Who is?" John countered. "But what do  _you_  think?"

"I honestly don't know. We don't really know what a soul  _is._ Let me ask you, what do you believe, John?"

"Not really spent much time in church, to be honest, James. The life I've led – been forced to lead, I always thought that if God exists, then he must really hate me, to have dumped all of this on me."

"You really think so? Forget about God for a moment," Ellison never thought he'd say those words.

"Well, she's got a  _mind,_  clearly. She's self aware, and I know for a  _fact_  that she has feelings, even if they aren't fully developed yet. Surely that counts as a soul."

Ellison leaned back and took a swig from a bottle of water he'd kept with him to keep his throat from drying up during his sermon, not being used to long speeches.

"As I said, John, I don't know. What's brought this on, anyway?"

"Something Derek said during the service, and also something Cameron told me the other night." John decided that he could open up fully to Ellison, the man would keep any conversation confidential, and John had developed a trust for him, more than even his uncle, sometimes.

"I once told Derek and my mom that Cameron didn't have a soul, and that she never would. At the time, Cameron wasn't like she is now; there were hints that she was something more, but I think I just took it as mimicry. Derek mentioned it earlier, and it's been ringing in my ears ever since."

"And what did Cameron say?"

"It was Judgement Day. I was in the command centre at night and we were talking, she said she'd not likely survive the war and..."

"And you want to know what would happen to her if she perished," James finished the thought. "You love her, don't you?"

"Yeah," John nodded his head.

"Well, that explains what got Derek so pissed off the other morning. He never said what had happened, but he was  _steaming_. He nearly smashed up a bunch of computers in the command centre and kept going on about scrapping Cameron, while you guys were out at Carson. I had to kick him out of the room."

"Sounds like Derek," John replied sadly. He just wished that Derek could accept Cameron as human. She was trying her hardest to not just fit in, but to  _be_ human. How could she be if Derek treated her like scrap metal the whole time? "She's  _alive,_  James; she's different from the others. She might not be human yet; but she's trying, she's learning."

"If you think of a soul as the same as a mind, a consciousness; then yeah, I'd say she's got it. If you mean has she got one in the religious sense, I really don't know." Ellison could see the dismay on John's face, the heartbreak at the thought that Cameron, although self aware, intelligent, and capable of feeling, might be nothing more than a soulless machine. "There's always a chance, I guess."

"There'd better be," John replied.  _Screw it._ He decided that, at least in his eyes, she did have a soul. The only difference between hers and a human's was that you could see hers; he'd held it in the palm of his hand on more than one occasion. He'd seen it before when looking at her chip; it held so much more on it that programming and lines of code. "Because when I die, if Cameron's not up there with a halo and playing a harp, the big guy upstairs is going to have a  _lot_  to answer for."

"As much faith as I've got, even  _I_  wouldn't know who to place my bets on in that fight," Ellison chuckled.

* * *

"So tell me, why did John say  _I_ had to help you with this?" Charlie looked on, gorge rising in his stomach as he watched Cameron carve the flesh of the first Terminator's torso. It wasn't Cameron that bothered him, it was the fact that the scene before them brought back flashbacks from the first time he'd seen her do this. He'd never felt more uncomfortable before or since that moment, until now.

"He didn't say why. He's speaking with James Ellison, Derek is on a mission, and nobody else knows about the Terminators. John thinks we should keep it that way for now." Cameron held up another knife and offered it to Charlie. "This would go faster if you started on the others." Charlie gingerly took the knife and stood over the second one, the one whose head Cameron had blown clean off with a grenade.  _At least I don't have to see its face as I do this,_  he sighed as he knelt down in front of it. He hesitated as his hand wavered over the chest, about to make an incision into the chest like Cameron had done.

"You were an EMT before Judgement Day," Cameron observed. "Blood shouldn't upset you."

"I get that," Charlie still hadn't moved his hand to cut open the chest. "It's not the blood, its carving up some guy-"

"- He's not a guy-.

"'- He's a scary robot,'" Charlie half grinned, finishing the sentence she'd used the last time they'd been in this position. "And from what I heard about you and the T-1s on Friday, you're  _still_  a  _very_  scary robot."

Cameron ignored the comment, slightly hurt and not knowing that he was actually paying her an offhand compliment. This was why she tried to remain fairly robotic, even around the likes of Charlie and Ellison.

"Pass me the needle nosed pliers," Cameron said as she took the last of the skin from the Triple 8's head, exposing the CPU port cover. Charlie passed her the whole tool box and gave up working on his own machine, deciding to watch her take it apart instead, both fascinated and horrified at the same time.

"These things, how exactly do they work, again?" Charlie asked as Cameron wedged the tip of her knife underneath the port cover and opened it."

"The CPU in the skull is much like your brain, only more efficient," she answered almost blankly, though Charlie thought he could detect a slight hint of pride in her voice as she pulled the chip out. Next she cut out the eyes, careful not to damage any of the sensitive wiring as she extracted the red orbs from their metal sockets. The infrared based vision the 800 series had was nowhere near as efficient as her eyes, which had better than perfect vision and could see light in any spectrum, they would do as temporary replacements if her own eyes were ever damaged beyond use, until she could build new eyes for herself.

Next she went to work on its metal chest, prying open the armoured section that covered the power cell. She quickly ran an analysis on it and found it was over ninety percent charged. She extracted the secondary cell as well and begun work on the conduits and capacitors that ran from the power cells to the body and limbs. Charlie looked on in wonder as Cameron essentially performed a cybernetic autopsy, and then realised he was being completely useless.

"Anything I can do to help?" he asked, not looking forward to having to cut up the other machines.

"Yes, stop talking please." Cameron answered without turning away from her work. "If you skin the other two machines it will save time while I extract their parts."

"I thought you'd say that," Charlie replied grimly, and began to cut into the chest without much enthusiasm. It didn't help that, despite being headless, he expected it to come to life any second and snap his neck. Within a few minutes he had all the skin from the torso off, exposing gleaming chrome covered in slick artificial blood. Charlie had managed to fight off his gag reflex, but still kept his eyes wondering to the thing's limbs to check for any sign of movement.

"Any idea what John and Ellison are talking about?" Charlie asked, needing to take his mind off what he was doing.

"No, John wanted to speak alone, which is unusual. He normally insists on my presence."

"Yeah, you guys are pretty close, huh?" Cameron paused for a moment; it was more of a statement than a question. John wanted their relationship to be kept secret, to keep her safer when they inevitably found out what she was. She had expected that Charlie and Ellison, and even Derek would have suspected they were 'close' as Charlie had put it, long before Judgement Day.

"Yes, we are...  _'close,'_ " Cameron answered, extracting the last of the servos and intact moving parts from the legs before hefting it over her shoulder and dumping it into a shallow pit she'd dug in the parking lot, before returning to the machine Charlie was working on skinning.

"Don't do anything to hurt him, okay. He's still like a son to me, and he's got enough on his plate right now without worrying about that. " Charlie still found it more than a little disturbing that John felt so much for a machine, even one as clearly intelligent as Cameron was; but in the end it was John's choice and Charlie would support his decision, no matter what.

"I would never hurt John," Cameron stated forcefully. She couldn't. John was everything to her. Not just her mission, he was her reason for existing. He'd given her freedom to choose, without ever saying it. She had no choice in protecting him, though John had expressed to her – when they were laid in bed together after the Fort Carson incident – that he wanted to somehow give her free will.

To a certain extent, she already had it; she had to protect him, of that she had no choice. But she knew even if her programmed mission were somehow erased, she would still choose to protect John. She didn't have to make love to him or kiss him, or have any kind of relationship with him. She could have protected him whilst keeping her distance – which Derek would have much preferred. But she didn't want that, she'd never have become what she was without him. He'd chosen to spend time with her, help her blend in and interact. He'd been the only one to actually speak  _to_  her as an equal, rather than  _at_ her, as Sarah and Derek had always done. She  _wanted_ to be with him, to be his... lover? girlfriend? Strangely, for a machine, she felt no need to categorise what they were. She was his, and he was hers, and that was enough.

"Do you love him? I mean,  _can_  you even love him?" Cameron turned towards the Terminator body and started removing more parts from it, concentrating on removing the pieces she deemed salvageable. There were fewer on the others than on the first. Two of the remaining three had had their eyes shot out, by Cameron nonetheless, while the third had had its head blown off. She only had the two eyes to work with, should she need replacements. Charlie turned away as she seemed to ignore his question, and begun skinning the third machine as she replayed her last memory before she was sent back to 1999.

* * *

_Cameron stood naked in front of the platform, watching Kyle Reese and the Model 101 T-800 shed their clothing and step towards the time displacement field. Kyle stood in the circular dip in the floor and placed his hand protectively over his groin as General John Connor and Lieutenant General Perry flipped switches._

_"Good luck, Sergeant Reese." John saluted Kyle from behind the screen as the room filled with white blue flares of lightning. Cameron saw Sergeant Reese smiling as he returned the salute eagerly. John's face looked as if it were made of stone, and if Cameron hadn't have known better, she would have run a scan to confirm he wasn't a Terminator. She watched as Perry returned the gesture to Kyle, and for some unknown reason, she snapped her hand up to her forehead and gave him a crisp salute of her own. Kyle simply smiled at her before he was enveloped in a blue white sphere that exploded into nothingness._

_"Bob's up next," John said to Perry, "set coordinates for August 1995."_

_"Sir, do you really have to name them? And I still don't get why you'd trust them with your ten year old self?"_

_"Would_ you _prefer to fight the T-1000 instead?" John stared at Perry with those unshakeable dead eyes. "I didn't think so. Bob, step onto the TDE platform." Again, Cameron did not understand why John Connor seemed to possess no traceable emotion. Humans were usually driven by their emotions; it was what made them weaker. This John Connor, whom she'd been originally sent to destroy, was nothing like the others. If he felt emotion, he was very good at hiding it, though Cameron could not understand why. She'd spent eight months with the resistance now, six of those were spend almost permanently at Connor's side, and in that whole time she'd not seen a single smile or tear, or seen him shout in anger once. She did not understand why John Connor was different; he was more like Skynet than a human._

_The T-800 John Connor referred to as "Bob" stood stock still, its face similar in expression to John's, as it too was encompassed with a blinding blue-white flash and disappeared without a trace._

_"Perry, check with Major Byrne and make sure this place is wired to blow as soon as we've sent Cameron through and gotten out of here. Ten minutes, tops; I don't want Skynet using this place again. Order Colonel Davenport to withdraw all units back to Green Six and await further instructions."_

_"Sir, I should be here as well, this would be the perfect time for it to go bad."_

_"I trust Cameron, Perry. I know her; she won't go bad."_

_Perry snapped off a crisp salute, keeping the disgust off his face, and marched off, leaving John and Cameron alone in the TDE control room. He opened the door for her and marched through behind her, taking her hand gently and guiding her onto the platform._

_"You've got the most important job of all, Cameron. Do you understand your mission?"_

_"Affirmative," Cameron nodded. "Protect John Connor and assist him in his attempts to prevent Skynet."_

_"Good," John nodded. "Do you understand that this is a long term mission? There's more threats than that Triple 8 out there; I need you to protect me from them all. There's something else I want you to do when you're there, another mission."_

_"What is it?" Cameron asked._

_"I can't tell you," John's voice cracked slightly; his eyes, normally so cold, lightened and gave a rare glimpse of emotion that Cameron couldn't identify. Moisture lined the edges of his eyes, and Cameron was about to inform him that his tear ducts were malfunctioning, before John spoke again. "I can't say what it is; you'll work it out for yourself. Just look after me, okay?"_

_"Affirmative, what do I do when my mission is complete?" A pained smile came to John's face and Cameron saw even more moisture in his eyes, yet no tears fell. Cameron concluded that John Connor likely had a viral eye infection, and should see the medic as soon as possible._

_"It doesn't matter; chances are you'll die during this mission. If you do survive, you're free to do whatever you want." John Connor's face softened slightly into a sad smile, and a single teardrop fell down his face before he wiped it away and his face hardened once more, his eyes set back to their stony gaze._

_"Good luck, Cameron." John flipped the switch and Cameron watched the lightning as it encompassed her, sparked all around her and sent electrical surges through all the nerves in her body. Then the world around her exploded in a brilliant white flash._

* * *

"Hello, Cameron? Scary Robot? Are you still there?" Cameron realised that she'd been engrossed in the memory for more than five minutes, she'd not noticed Charlie speaking to her, and she'd been running on what John would call autopilot as she harvested the parts of the Terminators. She'd gotten all the pieces she'd need from them whilst running her memory loop. It took her a moment to play back Charlie's last words to her and recall what he'd said.  _'Do you love him?'_

It came down to her earlier thoughts; she  _chose_  to remain at his side, she  _wanted_  to be intimate with him. It had nothing about assisting her mission to protect him, she realised; she didn't need his love or affection for that, simply his cooperation. She thought back to her second mission, which she had discovered two nights ago. Future John hadn't told her what it was because he'd wanted her to figure it out herself, and then  _choose_  to do it. It wasn't a direct order, like her primary mission. She wanted to protect him from becoming the broken shell of a man that Future John was. It was as if Future John had wanted to care for her, possibly even wanted to  _love_  her, but was simply too broken. Thinking back to how hollow and bitter he'd been almost brought a tear to her eyes.

She chose to take care of John and keep him human, and she'd gone far beyond the limits of her programming in order to do it. If that was not love, she decided, then it was the nearest she'd ever get, and it was enough. Again, she decided that John was right, that 'love' wasn't something that could be categorised and defined. What she felt, she realised, went above and beyond her programming. It may have evolved from her mission protocols at some point, but she was sure now that it was very real.

"Yes," she barely whispered to herself.

"Yes what?" Charlie asked, confused and not sure if he'd even heard her.

"It doesn't matter," Cameron replied as she loaded the 'gutted' remains of the last Terminator into the pit and poured the thermite powder liberally over all of the bodies. She then lit a flare and tossed it onto the Terminator pile, watching it flash brilliantly as it instantly started to melt the coltan endoskeletons into slag. Within two minutes, Cameron and Charlie were stood over a cooling pile of twisted metal.

"What do we do with that?" Charlie asked. Cameron was already having ideas of her own, and waited for the slag pile to cool before she hefted the lump of metal over her shoulder and took it into the base. Charlie quickly packed all the tools into the toolbox and hurried after her, closing the blast doors when they were back inside. She dumped the coltan slag into a storage room and went to look for John. After searching the chapel, which was completely empty, she headed to their room; the VIP room in the officers' quarters, and dumped the bag full of spare Terminator parts into the wardrobe. He wasn't in their room, either.

She checked the mess hall on her way down from the officer's quarters and ran into Staff Sergeant Burke, still covered in cuts and bruises from two days before.

"You looking for Connor? He's in the command centre. Just came from there myself, I had to use the head."

"Head? For thinking?" Cameron took his statement literally, and didn't see why he'd have to leave the room to think.

"Not quite, but I've had some very deep and meaningful thoughts whilst there," he grinned.

Cameron was sorely confused now; she'd gotten used to interacting with John, and understood everything he said to her, same with Derek; although his interaction with her was usually minimal, very blunt and full of expletives. Apart from the anti machine slurs, which she could ignore as his opinion of her counted for nothing, she actually enjoyed conversing with Derek; nothing he said ever confused her. He was straight to the point and said what he meant. Until she become accustomed to living with the soldiers and learned their strange, slang riddled language, she'd have to continually ask John for help understanding them.

Burke walked back into the command centre with Cameron and took a seat at his console. Cameron found John behind another radio console looking frustrated.

"John," she leaned down to whisper to him. "I melted down the Terminators; the spare parts are in our room."

"Great job Cam," he replied quietly. "What about the other parts?"

"I melted them into a lump of coltan and placed it in the store room."

"What? Why?"

"I can use it later to strengthen the tanks' armour. I've also thought of other uses." He beckoned her closer so he could whisper in her ear.

"You're a genius, you know that?" Though her face didn't show it, Cameron was beaming inside; she loved it when John complimented her. She would have kissed him but barely managed to refrain from it.

"John, I need to tell you something."

"Can it wait, Cam? I'm pretty wrapped up here at the moment. Why don't you take a seat?" She went from beaming to flat in an instant. She knew that he was busy trying to organise groups around the world into a coherent resistance, which was top priority, but she  _needed_  to tell him what she'd discovered, what she'd finally found out. Still, she'd remain at his side as he begun to knit the survivors together via satellite and radio communications. Despite feeling slightly down at John waving her away before she could tell him what she considered to be the most important thing in the world, she also felt a sense of pride welling up inside her. She'd not felt that before, but knew that it must be what she was feeling.

It was pride for John as he sat there and linked together numerous groups across the world, relayed to them exactly what had happened; led them to areas that were safe – or at least, not so contaminated, according to their satellite data; and strived to link up stronger, well armed groups with weaker ones. She watched for hours as he continuously spoke into the mic and told every one out there what had to be done. He'd learned well from the lessons she, Sarah, and Derek had given him, and was becoming the leader she knew he could be, starting to fulfil his destiny already. She knew he'd never fail.

Everyone in the room came and went at two hour intervals; with Derek, Davenport, and Perry leading operations outside, there were less than forty men left on the base, and of those who weren't either sick or tending to the sick, half of them were in the command centre at any one time, taking two hour shifts before switching with a buddy. Cameron watched in amazement as John completed his eighth hour behind a sat-com console. He'd managed to communicate with survivors across the country, as well as Canada and Mexico, who'd also been badly hit. Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, and Spain all had large groups of survivors with whom John had been able to coordinate. In England especially; he'd managed to contact an underground cold war fallout shelter which was still manned and used as an armoury; and they in turn were communicating with a full armoured battalion forty miles away, who'd been on exercise in the middle of nowhere when the bombs had hit. Similar groups had survived in Europe, as well as Japan, China, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, groups like the ones in Britain and Germany proved to be the exception, rather than the rule, and the number of surviving groups and units he was in touch with now numbered less than half of that which he'd spoken to two days earlier, the others meeting their demise at the hands of Skynet's drone armies.

By his tenth hour in the command room, John had contacted and coordinated over thirty well armed units in a dozen countries, plus a large number of smaller groups; and was physically and mentally exhausted, but refused to leave his seat. He'd not even left his seat to use the toilet in eight hours. As strong and determined as he was, Cameron knew that John was reaching the limit of his endurance.

"Lieutenant Grant," Cameron addressed the platoon commander. "John is exhausted and needs rest. You take control." Grant nodded to her and took over the command centre without even a word, seeing the rings forming under John's eyes.

"Cam, I'm okay. Cup of coffee and I'll be fine. I've got to learn to stay up for days on end if I'm going to lead these guys, right?"

"Yes John, but you need rest; you were slurring in that last transmission and couldn't keep your eyes open." As if to prove her point, he tripped over something unseen and would have fallen flat on his face if not for Cameron's lightning fast reflexes.

"Okay, I see your point." He let her lead him out of the building and into the officers' living quarters, up the stairs and into their VIP room. When they got there, she laid him carefully on the bed and sat beside him, caressing his hand.

He was so tired he didn't even bother getting undressed. Cameron had been right, of course. She didn't need to scan him to know when he was done for, and it was better her pulling him away than him falling asleep in the command centre.

"Cam, what was you going to tell me earlier?" he asked her.

"It doesn't matter," she replied. "You need sleep."

"Tell me, Cam. I'm sorry about brushing you off before in the command room. But it sounded important, so I want to know." That was one of the things he loved about Cameron being a tin-girl; she never came up to him with trivial crap or celebrity gossip, even when just making conversation. He knew that if she had something to say, it was probably important, for whatever reason.

"I love you, John."

His eyes, sealed shut from fatigue as sleep was mere minutes away from claiming him, shot wide open and he saw her leaning over him, long brown hair falling into his face.

"See, that's pretty important," he grinned. "Are you sure? Four days ago you didn't know."

"I'm sure," she insisted. It was all John needed. She might have lied to him in the past, but knew a hundred percent she was truthful to him now. He couldn't believe he'd doubted  _for a moment_ that she'd had a soul. There was no doubt at all in his mind now.

He pulled her down to him and kissed her, running his hands through her hair and up and down her sides as she straddled him. The kiss grew in intensity as John's hands roamed over her body.

"John, you need sleep," she insisted, grudgingly breaking off the kiss.

"Cam, I'm a guy. We've always got energy for this," he grinned stupidly but knew she was right. He didn't want to make love to her when he was tired; she exhausted him anyway, even when he was fresh as a daisy. He'd content himself with just laying beside her for the night.

Even that seemed not to be as their door knocked loudly, reminding John of two days ago when Derek had stormed in and dragged him off to the gym. It couldn't be him; he was in Colorado Springs, searching for survivors. "Ugh, there's no rest for the wicked; eh, Cam?" He got up and smoothed his t shirt down before answering the door. Davenport stood in front of him.

"Oh," Davenport said, seeing Cameron stood by the bed. "I wasn't disturbing anything, was I? Sorry."

"Davenport, aren't you meant to be in Fort Carson?"

"I just got back with the first shipment of supplies. We've got a load of food and weapons in the first batch. Mainly rocket launchers and ice cream, to tell the truth."

"Ice cream?" John asked, confused.

"Yes sir. The power must have gone out some time after the battle on Friday, and the freezers all shut down; so we've brought all the frozen stuff out of the stores first and hauled it back here. Plus, a lot of the guys have a sweet tooth, so I thought it would be a morale boost. Ben and Jerry's, sir?" Davenport held out a litre tub of ice cream and offered it to John.

"Tell you what, you have that one, but make sure to save us a tub, okay?"

"Yes sir," Davenport said.

"And stop calling me 'sir,' I told you, I'm not military."

"Yeah... about that; Lieutenant Grant radioed me while I was at Carson and told me to get you these." Davenport held out a suit bag and opened the zip, revealing two pairs of green DPMs and two pairs of boots. The DPM jackets had  _Connor_  stencilled on the right breast, and four stars on each shoulder.

"Grant said he'd contacted some brigadier in California who was convinced it was the Chinese who somehow managed to hack into our defence system, and was trying to rally troops for an offensive against China. Wouldn't listen to us until we said we were under a full General's orders. So officially, you're now General John Connor, 4th Infantry Division. Congratulations on joining the Army sir; best career move you've ever made." John could tell Davenport was loving this; he had no idea how the man could be so chirpy when he'd had just as little sleep as him, and had been out in the very place where they'd lost so many men two days ago. John suspected that Davenport was one of the men he'd claimed had a sweet tooth, and had indulged himself more than a little on the sugary ice cream.

"Are you going back there tonight?" John asked him.

"Yes sir, just grabbing some chow then heading back in an hour."

"Good work, Davenport. And remember to save some ice cream for everyone else, okay."

"Will do,  _sir,_ " Davenport saluted enthusiastically, spun on his heel and marched back down the corridor with a spring in his step, the sugar rush plainly at its peak.  _That guy's going to feel like crap in an hour or two,_  John smirked. He'd overdone it himself quite a few times on ice cream before; the sugar crash afterwards always left him as lethargic as hell.

He hung up the uniform in the wardrobe and saw the bag of spare Terminator parts sat on the bottom. He hoped they'd never need to use them. He lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes as Cameron manoeuvred into her usual position on her side; head on his shoulder, arm over his chest, and her legs intertwined with his. He never knew how he'd slept any other way before.

"I just thought; how do they know it's my size? They never measured me."

"They know," Cameron said.

"You! You had a hand in this, didn't you?" John pointed at her, mock accusingly.

"It's a tight present," she replied simply, kissing his cheek.  _It was pretty 'tight,'_ John agreed. Along with the PlayStation 4 at Christmas, the new laptop for his birthday; they'd never had much money but she'd always managed to lavish him with gifts somehow, and he never bothered asking how she'd got them. Her built day was coming up in a few months; he'd have to find something special for her – somehow – out of the crappy ruins of the world. He made a mental note to find  _something_  for her.

"You really are too good for me, Cam, you know that?" He kissed her lips one last time and leaned back on the pillow.

"Yes, I am 'too good for you,' John." He turned his head over to see the playful grin on her face. "But I love you anyway." John couldn't help but laugh.

"Love you too, Cam." For some reason, despite all the crap that was going on around him and the heaps of pressure that were building on his shoulders; those three little words spoken by Cameron made everything seem right with the world. He'd never wanted to be General Connor, tried to avoid it like the plague, and now the rank had  _literally_  been thrust onto him. Yet strangely, it felt comfortable; right, even. And with Cameron by his side, he wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

"How many survivors is that?" Derek asked Sergeant Barrow, his platoon 2ic.

"Thirteen here, but we've got reports of another group waiting for rescue, two miles east."

"We have a fix on their position?"

"Yeah, they're in a high school on the outskirts of the city," Barrow pointed on a map to the high school in question. "Far enough to escape the fireball and the brunt of the blast, but they've still taken a beating. And Charlie Squad's reporting UCAVs flying to the east."

"We'll take these ones first," Derek shouted to be heard over the rumbling engine of the Stryker. "Get them back to base and get Dixon and the medics to look them over, I'll RV with Charlie squad and secure the high school. Keep heads up for UCAVs and put a Stinger on each Humvee for top cover." Barrow nodded and loaded up the pathetic looking survivors into his Stryker, while his own men crammed into the Humvees. All their vehicles were full past maximum capacity and resembled armoured sardine tins, but even Derek couldn't bring himself to leave any of them behind. They reminded him too much of practically everyone he knew from his timeline; not knowing what was going on, afraid, ill, weak from hunger and thirst.

He fought back painful memories as he got into his own Stryker, his squad pulling back from an all round defensive position and into the armoured vehicle, before they drove east to rescue the next group of victims. Perhaps Derek had gotten soft during his four years in the past; perhaps he was just preoccupied with his mission, and trying to keep memories from rising to the surface as he saw the effects of Judgement Day firsthand for the second time.

Whatever it was, it prevented him from seeing the softly glowing red eyes in the darkness that hid amongst the rubble, tracking him and his vehicles as they headed east.

_ID: Derek Reese_

_Action: Follow subject, he will lead to primary target: John Connor_


	6. Jealousy

**June 17th 2011**

Breakfast time in Cheyenne Mountain was an exercise of informal segregation if there ever was one. The large dining hall, built to accommodate over a hundred hungry souls, reflected perfectly the structure of the Resistance. Packed around the large dining tables were the troops, eating and drinking sloppily; their tables the scenes of laughter, horseplay, and the general high spirited antics of the rank and file soldiers of any army that had ever existed during mealtimes. Sat at another table, Derek, James Ellison, and Charlie Dixon ate quietly in hushed conversation. The refugees they'd rescued who'd survived – many had died within days from radiation poisoning- sat huddled together in silence at another table, eyes down as they picked at their food. There were now more than forty civilians living in the mountain, and at John's insistence, they had all taken on roles to support the soldiers. Many had been trained by Perry to use the communications, radar, and satellite imaging equipment in the command centre, freeing the soldiers manning those consoles for operations.

The very picture of solitude, John Connor sat separate from the men under his command; feeling it was necessary to keep a certain distance from those he could be sending to his death at any time. Opposite him sat his bodyguard, lover, and best friend all rolled into one. Cameron didn't need to eat, but she dug into her bacon and eggs anyway. Partly to blend in and also because she enjoyed the sensation of eating – despite as yet being unable to interpret the sensory data into what could be called 'taste,' it made her feel more human.

John always marvelled at the sight of Cameron eating; ever since she'd taken that Dorito from the gas station back in 1999 he'd been amazed that she'd been built to eat, more so that she could even take nourishment from the food and use the proteins to help repair damaged tissue. Not that Cameron needed to heal; things had been fairly quiet since the Fort Carson incident. Since that battle John had focussed his efforts on coordinating surviving forces around the world, rallying enough forces to be able to strike back. Closer to home, the 4th Infantry soldiers of the resistance had concentrated on rescuing survivors and finding more supplies, as well as sending out reconnaissance patrols to find signs of Skynet activity.

"Are you going to eat that, Cam?" John asked, pointing at the bacon on her plate."

"No, you can have it," Cameron answered, "this is the sixth day in a row you've eaten bacon, eggs, and sausage for breakfast. You should monitor your calorie intake."

"Aw, come on, Cam," John moaned as he stabbed at her bacon and shovelled the pink meat into his already full mouth. "Both you  _and_  Derek have told me God knows how many times that in a few years I'll be hunting  _rats_  for food. So let me enjoy this for now, huh?"

"Okay, John," she put her sausage on his plate for him to eat as well.

"Besides, you'd still love me even if I got fat, right?" John asked as he swallowed his bacon without chewing.

"Yes, of course, John. But tomorrow I will cook for you instead."

"I'm looking forward to it," John grinned at the thought. He knew what Cameron's cooking meant; pancakes. After Sarah had passed, Cameron had learned to cook from watching cookery shows on TV. Derek had proved himself even worse in the kitchen than Sarah had been, and had quickly given up on trying – much to John's relief. Cameron had taken the reigns in feeding the 'family', and despite being a Terminator with no sense of taste she'd proven herself invaluable in the kitchen. John also knew that she would cook  _only_  for him. The morning after she'd told him she loved him for the first time, he'd awoken to breakfast in bed; a large stack of pancakes loaded with chocolate chips and syrup.

John shovelled more egg into his gullet and washed it down with another swig of coffee. Any other girl would have been disgusted by his table manners, which were on a par with Derek's and had only gotten worse in the weeks he'd spent in the company of the soldiers. Cameron didn't care, she couldn't be disgusted by trivial things like table manners, which was yet another thing he loved about her. He narrowly avoided spilling fried egg down the front of his uniform as he gorged.

"Don't ruin your uniform, it's tight," Cameron said, smiling slightly as her back was turned to the rest of the room.

"It will be if I keep eating like this," John joked. Though he knew that if he carried on with his recent eating habits, he wouldn't have to worry about putting on any weight.

He'd quickly grown to appreciate what few meals he'd had since being 'drafted' and 'promoted' to General Connor. He tended to eat only once a day; not out of rationing or lack of food – something they'd have to consider later - but because he now spent so much time in the command centre that he tended to skip meals. His ten hour stint seven weeks ago had been one of the shortest shifts he'd had since taking command, and Cameron had been forced on several occasions – out of concern for John – to bring food and drink to him, and even to drag him back to their quarters at times. The few times he allowed himself the time to eat a decent meal, and the nights he spent with Cameron, were pure bliss to him. But he'd already pulled several all night shifts in the command room, talking to commanders around the world and making records of all their resources, as well as filling them in on Skynet's tactics and how to fight the machines.

Although Cameron knew his destiny and was proud that he'd embraced it and taken to his role so well, John was aware that she craved some decent alone time with him. After the night Davenport had given him his uniform they'd hardly had any decent time alone together. It wasn't fair on her, he knew. The only time she was herself was when they were alone; it was the only time she felt safe to be anything other than robotic and distant. He promised himself he'd make some time for her soon. He'd put Derek in charge for an evening so that they could have some quality time together.

"Mind if I join you?" A petite blonde – Jessica Morgan – set her plate down beside John and took the seat next to him before he could answer. Jessica – formerly Officer Morgan of the Denver Police Department – had driven to Cheyenne from Denver a few days ago under cover of night to avoid the T-1 and UCAV patrols. She wasn't simply a survivor; she was part of a group of thirty or so individuals, mostly cops and a few civilians, who'd survived the inferno of Judgement Day and had gone underground into the sewers once they'd spotted the UGV patrols several days later.

Perry and his squad had found them by accident when searching for other survivors, and had seen sense to lend them one of their radios, complete with frequencies to reach John at Cheyenne Mountain. They'd elected to stay in Denver and fight, but were ill equipped to do so, armed mainly with shotguns and MP-5s. Hence it had fallen to Jessica Morgan to request that John supply them with weapons to fight the machines.

Cameron ran yet another scan on Jessica as she sat down with a plate of toast and started happily munching away. Once again the threat analysis came up as  _unknown,_ and Cameron was unsure why. The slim blonde woman next to John was definitely not a Terminator, was unarmed, and couldn't possibly be any kind of direct physical threat to either her or John. She'd run diagnostics on her systems several times and found no problems at all, yet her threat analysis always came up inconclusive. Cameron realised her jaw was unconsciously clenching as Jessica Morgan pulled her seat closer to John.

"So," Jessica began, "what's on the menu for today?"

"Fried breakfast, toast, or cereal; it's the same every day," Cameron answered, taking her question literally. Jessica rolled her eyes at Cameron and turned towards John. Cameron noted that the blonde woman brushed her ample breasts against John's arm ever so slightly as she turned, and also noted that John seemed oblivious to the fact. Cameron also noted that Jessica Morgan tended to touch John's arms or shoulders when it wasn't necessary, constantly adjusted her hair, and stuck her breasts out slightly when she spoke to John. She'd spent plenty of time before Judgement Day; both from time in high school and from watching TV, learning human social cues, and knew that all the behavioural traits Jessica Morgan were displaying indicated she was attracted to John, and it made Cameron feel very uncomfortable.

Since her appearance on the base, John had been paying less attention to Cameron and spending more time with Jessica. Cameron felt very insecure about this, and didn't know how to remedy the feeling. Rather than speak to John about it, she had withdrawn into herself.

"Today," John replied to Jessica, "We'll get you some weapons sorted out and see what supplies we can give to you."

"Great, I really don't know how to thank you, John." Cameron's internal threat alarm activated at the sound of Jessica addressing John by name.

"Ah, no need to thank me; we're all in this together, right."

"Yeah, sure. I guess being in Denver; we'll see a lot more of each other."

"Sure," John replied, not knowing what else to say in reply.

 _"General Connor, please report to the command centre immediately,"_ the intercom blared out. John swallowed the mouthful of bacon he was eating and sighed.

"Duty calls," John looked Cameron in the eyes, unable to kiss her with the soldiers around and Jessica right next to him, he settled for squeezing her hand as he stood up from the table. "Cam, do you want to come with?"

"No, I'll be in the store room," she answered blankly, staring Jessica down unblinkingly. While Cameron didn't fully understand her own emotions, she was very good at reading how other people felt – part of her infiltration software that had developed into a sense of empathy over time, and she could detect the disgust dripping from Jessica Morgan's face at her; in much the same manner as girls from high school who'd seen her as both a freak and a rival.

While John had been assembling the beginnings of the resistance from the command centre, Cameron had spent her time away from John in the store rooms, tinkering with various projects. John had no idea what; she said she'd show him when it was done, and he'd left it at that. He marched off, leaving half of his breakfast still on the plate. Cameron briefly considered following him; not out of need to protect him, but an urge to be with him, even if they weren't alone. The intercom buzzed once again, however, putting an end to her idea.

 _"Cameron Phillips, please report to the entrance."_  Cameron knew that call for her meant one thing; more survivors had either made their way to the mountain or been rescued by John's search teams. Cameron had made it habit to inspect each and every new arrival to Cheyenne Mountain, wary that one of them could potentially be a Terminator attempting to infiltrate the base. The chances were slim, but any possibility, no matter how small, was enough for Cameron to inspect every arrival. They'd never managed to destroy Cromartie, something that concerned Cameron greatly.

When Cameron arrived, she found Private Sharpe waiting impatiently by the door controls.

"I don't know why we have to go through this every time," he complained. "It's not like they're diseased or anything, and if they're well enough to make it back here, they can't be  _that_  radioactive."

"I have reasons," Cameron stated.

"Care to share them with me?" Sharpe enquired.

"No," she motioned for Sharpe to open the door as she prepared to initiate her combat subroutines. If she were exposed as a machine, so be it, she would have saved John's life. Sharpe opened up the inner door first, sealing Cameron in the space between blast doors, before opening the outer set; a security protocol she'd insisted on. She ignored Sharpe's  _"Freak"_ as she marched through. She saw the eight members of Bravo Squad, 2nd Platoon, along with five filthy, malnourished humans. She scanned them and determined none of them were cyborgs before she told Sharpe to open the inner doors to let them in.

As soon as they were inside, Cameron left it to the private to close the door and show the new arrivals to the infirmary. John would likely be busy in the command centre with Jessica and she didn't want to disturb him; as much as she wanted to spend every minute with John, she had things to do, things that would help John in his struggle against Skynet.

Cameron marched back to the store room and took the items she needed from the shelves; John's flak jacket, his Steyr AUG, several boxes of 5.56mm ammunition, and a container of thermite, and set it down on a large table next to a box of tools and the lump of coltan from the melted down Triple 8s. She sat down and set to work. First, she took a box of ammunition and removed the bullets from their cases, then mixed the gunpowder with thermite, and placed the bullet back into the casing. The result was a thermite round that burned with enough heat to burn through the armoured hides of the T-1s and T-2s.

The rounds had already been field tested and proved effective. It took several rounds to penetrate the armour and hit the critical components inside the UGV, but they worked, and gave an alternative to their limited supply of grenades. She then took the Kevlar plates out of John's flak jacket and reinforced them with a layer of coltan plating to give him further protection against anything up to .50 calibre rounds.

Her internal clock told her that she'd spent nine and a half hours making the coltan flak jacket and thermite rounds, and yet she'd still been unable to shut off the thought that Jessica Morgan was with John. She'd spent the last three days avoiding contact with John while  _she_  was around, feeling surplus to requirement. Based on Jessica's body language and heart rate around John, Cameron calculated over an eighty percent chance that she would make some kind of advance on John. She would not allow that to happen.

She knew that John would turn her down, but had also seen how persuasive human women could be, and knew that John hated to upset people. Jessica Morgan was also considerably attractive. She'd overheard many soldiers debating who out of her and Jessica Morgan they'd rather 'fuck,' and many were already speculating on whether or not John was screwing Jessica. Cameron knew John loved her, but Jessica Morgan was an extremely attractive  _human_  female; Cameron felt inadequate compared to the pretty blonde, but had been too proud to speak to John about it. Now she'd worked herself up calculating the probabilities of Jessica advancing on John, and worse, the chances that John might fall for said advances. The probability of that came at less than five percent, but it was still too much for Cameron to take; she had to speak with John, if only to ease her fears.

She strode out of the store room and marched out to find John. She walked out the building and into the command centre, finding Perry and Ellison supervising twenty civilians working on the radar and communications consoles; the former of the two appeared highly stressed and was stood over a nervous looking boy sat at a radar screen.

"Where's John?" She asked them.

"He's in the tunnel, last he said," Perry said irritably, "showing that Morgan woman around our tanks. Don't know why; it's not like we're giving them up to  _that_  rabble."

Cameron nodded at Perry and Ellison and walked back towards the base entrance. She dismissed the guard at the door and opened up the blast doors. She scanned the interior of the tunnel and saw nothing. She moved towards the new tanks – four more M1A2 Abrams had been salvaged from the base, adding to the already formidable armoured force they already had.

"John?" Cameron called out when a noise caught her attention from the tanks. She increased the sensitivity of her artificial ears and listened closer. She could hear a female voice inside one of the tanks, moaning loudly. She recognised the sounds emanating from inside, the sound of human mating, and managed to match the voice moaning in pleasure to the voice profile of Jessica Morgan.

Realisation hit her like a sledgehammer. Perry had said that John was in the tunnel with Jessica, Jessica was inside a tank having sex; John must be with her. John,  _her John_  was having sex with her. She felt tears falling from her eyes and rolling onto her cheeks. John was everything to her; her life – as John insisted she say rather than 'existence' – revolved around him. She was his protector, both in body and soul; he was her teacher, the only one who knew what she truly was and still treated her as an equal. She loved him; no matter what he did that would never change, and she could never hate him, even for cheating on her. But as her fears were confirmed she felt all emotion start to drain away. Her first instinct was to jump on the tank, rip the hatch open and terminate Jessica Morgan; but she did nothing of the sort. If John wanted Jessica Morgan, she wouldn't stand in his way. She would revert back to the way she was before she'd started to develop emotions; she'd suppress them and push them down like she did when she ran her combat subroutines.

She tried and failed; the only thing she could think to do was get away from the scene of her lover's betrayal, as if increasing the distance between her and them would somehow alleviate the pain she was feeling. As she headed off towards her and John's room – which she supposed would become John and Jessica's room now, she heard two soldiers talking about her and identified their voice patterns in the same way she did with Jessica Morgan.

"Seems like Connor's got himself a new playmate," one of them – Corporal Jackson – grinned.

"Yeah, it ain't fair how Connor gets all the pussy around here." PFC Wright replied.

"What? Cameron? He never screwed that freak! I can tell by her face she's never had a good seeing to."

"Freak or not, she's still hot. I'd do her."

Cameron rounded the corner and marched past the two soldiers, ignoring their comments. Both Wright and Jackson, respectively, had made advances on her previously, and she had bluntly declined them. She felt uncomfortable around them, despite posing no threat to her or John.

Their eyes were slightly glazed over and Cameron deduced they were either fatigued or inebriated, or both. The pair of them sauntered up to her, grins on their faces. Wright moved up closer to Cameron, his face inches from her. She just stared blankly into his eyes, wondering what he was doing as he wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close to him. "So, Cameron, how about we get to know each other better? Anyone told you you're the prettiest one here?"

Cameron ignored his question; her attention was drawn to the man's rifle, which was loaded with the safety off. And now they were closer, Cameron detected alcohol on his breath. He was clearly drunk.

"Never mind this," Wright said, seeing Cameron staring at his rifle. "If you want to see a really  _big gun,_  just come see me." He grinned and grabbed his crotch for emphasis as his other hand went around Cameron's waist and down to fondle her backside.

"No, thank you. I'm not interested in  _small arms."_ John had taught her that one during their senior year in school after several of the football team jocks had come on to her in a similar manner. Cameron brushed his hand off her and tried to turn away towards the storage room, when Jackson blocked her path.

"Hey, hey, we're just getting to know each other. Don't go spoiling things."

"You're drunk. You should return your weapons to the armoury," Cameron said, hoping they'd leave her alone.

"I'll put my weapon  _somewhere,"_  Wright said as he ground his crotch into her backside, placed a hand over her right breast and slid the other down towards her crotch. That was enough to overwhelm Cameron; not knowing how to handle unwanted attention like that, she froze. She'd watched enough TV to know what sexual advances were, and she knew that that was exactly what they were doing, and it upset her deeply. She only felt comfortable with John being in such close proximity and touching her in that manner. Not that he ever did, not like that. She replayed memories of the nights they'd made love, remembered the way he'd gently kissed and caressed her, how she'd lovingly returned the gesture.

John was with Jessica Morgan, she thought yet again as Wright started to slide a hand inside her underwear. John didn't want her, she was just a machine. So that's what she would be. She closed her eyes and resigned herself to whatever the two men were going to do to her, and she would feel nothing. She was just a machine...

Wright's hands were suddenly torn from her body and he screamed out in shock and fear. Cameron spun around to see John kick the PFC in the balls and knee him in the face just as Wright doubled over in pain. To Cameron's advanced hearing, the bone crunching impact of John's knee against Wright's teeth was like the crack of a whip. Wright went down like a sack of bricks and stayed there, minus several front teeth which had scattered across the corridor. John turned his attention to Jackson, who stared at him in shock.

"Connor... I mean, General, we were just-" Jackson never got to finish his sentence as John snapped up a sidekick into the man's gut and followed with a right hook into Jackson's face, hitting his right eye which instantly swelled and started to turn purple. But John wasn't finished. He head butted the corporal and then pushed him over Wright's prostrate, semi conscious body, sending Jackson sprawling.

John stared levelly at them as he pulled out a SIG from his leg holster and aimed at Jackson's head; no hint of emotion in John's face as he seriously considered painting the wall behind them with their brains. Cameron shook her head at John. Despite being willing to kill anyone and everyone on Earth to protect John, she didn't want them to die over her when she was just a machine. More importantly, she didn't want John to execute his own soldiers, as his future self had regularly done with troops who'd betrayed his trust. Killing them would start to turn him into what she was trying to prevent. Both Jackson and Wright closed their eyes and cringed as John tensed his finger on the trigger.

He looked at Cameron for in instant and took his finger off the trigger, instead settling for pistol whipping Jackson across the face, knocking him to the floor once more.

"Just what?" John demanded. "Just about to rape her?"

"No sir," Jackson winced as he clutched his hand against his swelling cheek, no doubt broken by John's attack. "We were just messing around, having a laugh; we wouldn't have done anything like that, really."

"I'm sure  _she_ saw the funny side," John pointed at Cameron who was staring at the floor; face blank, but it was clear to John she was wallowing in misery. "Pick yourselves up and get to the infirmary," John spat as he placed his SIG back into the holster. "You're out of this base tonight; Jessica Morgan's heading back to Denver and I want you two fuckwits to go with her." He saw the dismal look on their faces at being told they were being exiled to live in a sewer and eat rats. "You can go with her to Denver or you can just fuck off right now, I don't care. Now get the fuck out of my sight!"

Jackson helped Wright to his feet and together the pair of them staggered off towards the infirmary, desperate to get away from their commander who'd just beaten them senseless and very nearly killed them without any effort or even feeling, in case he changed his mind. Once they were gone and he was sure they were alone, John turned to Cameron and gently cupped her face in his hands, his face softening in an instant, as it always did for her.

"Cam, are you okay?" It was a stupid question, he knew, but he didn't know what else to say.

"I'm fine," she said without emotion.

"I know what 'fine' means, Cam." 'Fine' meant she was upset but didn't want to talk about it. He pulled her into a close embrace and kissed her forehead. "Why didn't you fight them off? You just stood there and let them touch you like that."

"I froze," she lied. "My CPU had a glitch."

"Bullshit Cam! You don't just get  _'glitches'_  like that; I know you." John had seen it in her eyes; he could always read her, even when she gave no hint of emotion. He'd seen the resigned look on her face, one that said she didn't care anymore.

"I didn't want to hurt them; any violence against resistance fighters now would cause further friction when they discover I'm a machine. It's better if I remain passive."

John winced as she said 'machine' with an acid tone in her voice, laced with self loathing. Although it was another new emotion she'd learned – she was learning and growing more every day - it was breaking his heart to see Cameron act like this.

"Let me deal with what happens then, okay. You're not just a machine; you're a person, no less human than the rest of us. Got that? Just because you're made of coltan under there rather than meat and bones it doesn't mean you have to put up with being treated like that. If anyone attacks you again,  _in any way,_  you beat the crap out of them!"

"Are you saying I should kill them?" Cameron asked, looking into John's eyes.

"No, I'm not saying kill them! But I won't make it an order, either." He knew he had no need to make an order like that; he trusted Cameron implicitly. More than that, John had decided before Judgement Day that he'd never give Cameron an order; he saw them as equals, which was why he'd never given her a rank like he'd done with Derek, Charlie, and Ellison. To John she was simply Cameron; they both knew her role and she needed no rank or number to tell them that.

"If you want to be with Jessica Morgan, I won't stop you."Cameron broke his embrace and looked down at the ground once more.

 _"What?_  Cam, what the hell are you talking about?"

"You and Jessica Morgan, you were in the tunnel, having sex inside a tank."

"I wasn't in the tunnel, Cam. I was going to show her the tanks that she was so obsessed with seeing, but Sergeant Burke called for me. She's with...  _Davenport!"_

John took her hand and led her back to the entrance, opening the blast doors and stepping out into the tunnel alongside the tanks. "Which tank was it?" John asked. Cameron pointed to one furthest from the blast door, one of the newly acquired Abrams from Fort Carson. As John got closer he could hear moaning and panting coming from inside, muffled by the thick layers of tank armour. John flashed an evil grin and she wondered what he was going to do. He cupped his hands over his mouth, took a deep breath and screamed "METAL!"

The turret hatch on the tank swung open and Davenport leaped out of the turret and onto the main chassis of the armoured behemoth, M4A1 carbine at the ready as he swung the weapon around and searched for targets, his face a mask of adrenaline and aggression; John could tell he was up for a fight.  _He's got spirit, at least,_ John said to himself. Davenport would have looked a true professional, battle hardened warrior if not for the fact that his trousers were missing and he was stood to in just his DPU jacket and boxer shorts. John was barely able to contain his laughter at the sight, and even Cameron allowed a small, sad smile to grace her lips, despite all the turmoil she was going through.

"General! Where's the metal, sir?"

"There isn't any, Davenport," John sighed as Jessica's head poked out of the hatch to see what was going on. "Tell me something; you're inside a  _tank_  and someone shouts 'metal,' so why exactly did you jump out to face it with a  _rifle_? And what's wrong with your quarters, anyway?" John nodded at the blushing Jessica as she pulled herself out of the tank. John noticed her clothes were creased and had obviously been put back on in a hurry. Part of the reason he'd palmed her off on Davenport was because her constant flirting had gotten on his nerves, John marvelled at the speed with which she'd found a new target. Perhaps she'd only gone after him because he was in charge, he wondered.

"Ah, she  _really_ likes tanks, sir." Davenport grinned sheepishly as his face turned bright red.

"Get yourself sorted out and head to the dining hall; Charlie squad from 1st Platoon have come back from a patrol and I want you to debrief them in ten minutes." John chuckled inwardly at the comic sight of his lieutenant caught literally with his trousers down. "Twenty minutes," John winked at Davenport as he changed his order.

He turned round with Cameron and started back to the blast doors, then faced Davenport once more, this time with a cold glare in his eyes. "Oh, another thing lieutenant; Corporal Jackson and PFC Wright have graciously volunteered to stay in Denver and train them. Make sure they stay there," he growled. With that, he and Cameron walked back inside the base, leaving Davenport to close up the blast doors behind him. John pressed the intercom inside the blast doors and called for a guard to return to the entrance, and then called Perry in the command centre to tell him he was in charge for the night – as Derek was due to lead a recon patrol later. He led Cameron back to their room so they could talk in private. There was more upsetting her than she'd told him, and he was determined to get it out of her. Once inside their quarters he closed and locked the door and sat her down on the bed, sitting next to her he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him. He found it slightly odd that lately it had been Cameron comforting him, reassuring him when he was at his lowest ebb; and that their roles had now reversed.

"So, Cam, are you going to tell me what's up?"

"I made a mistake; I thought you were having sex with Jessica Morgan. I was wrong." John realised she wasn't going to talk about what happened in the corridor, but at least she was speaking now.

"Don't give me that, you've been acting weird the last few days, ever since..." Since  _she'd_ arrived, John realised. Since Jessica had arrived and tried to dig her claws into him. John knew she was attracted to him; she'd made subtle moves on him all day since they'd left the breakfast table. She actually annoyed John to no end, but John didn't want to ruin the relationship between his company in Cheyenne Mountain and the cell in Denver; they'd need their help down the line and he wanted to keep things running smoothly, so he'd graciously ignored her attempts to get his attention.

"Cam, are you  _jealous?"_  Cameron thought for a moment. Her threat warning alarm had always spiked when Jessica had been near John, and she'd felt something akin to anger watching the woman worm her way closer to John. She'd torn herself apart trying to calculate the odds that John would fall for her charms. She nodded her head as it rested against John's shoulder.

"Cam, look at me," John turned so they were facing each other and pulled her face up from looking at the ground so he could make eye contact with her. His green eyes showed no hint of the cold rage he'd felt against Jackson and Wright, instead they were filled with nothing but love and warmth for his cyborg companion. "You don't have to be jealous," he kissed her gently, their lips meeting for only a second. "I love you, and  _only_  you. Nothing will ever change that."

"I'm sorry John." Cameron felt shame for the first time; shame that she'd doubted John, after everything he'd done for her. John lay back on the bed and pulled her down with him, pulling her close and resting his head against the top of hers.

"No,  _I'm_  sorry, Cam. I've been neglecting you lately. I know we haven't spent much time together."

"Its okay, John; you have to lead them. There's not much time for us anymore."

"Well I'm going to  _make_  time for us. What's the point in fighting the machines if I'm just going to act like them? If all there is to life is the mission? Seeing what those two fuckups tried to do to you, I don't even know why I bother."

"It's your destiny," Cameron replied. "You are John Connor."

"Yeah, I know," he sighed. He'd grown to embrace his role now; he'd fit into it well, but still wondered if there was any point if people were still going to act the same as before. If people wouldn't learn from their mistakes, then perhaps they all deserved to be wiped out. "But I don't fight for  _them_." Cameron was thoroughly confused by his words; how could John fight to save humans from Skynet if he wasn't fighting for them? It didn't make sense.

John, sensing her confusion, elaborated for her. "I'm not fighting for them; I'm fighting for us." Cameron still didn't quite understand. She was supposed to fight for him; not the other way around. Although she didn't get it, she knew John's words often had deeper meaning, and she resolved to try and understand what he'd meant. For now, she settled for holding John closer to her, not wanting to be away from him for a moment, even by inches. She found herself unable to stop her tear ducts from opening and releasing a torrent of fresh tears down her face.

"Why did you defend me?" She asked, " _I'm_  supposed to protect  _you."_

John pulled her head up and traced his fingers softly over her cheeks and wiping away her tears. He wished she could understand that while she'd sacrifice herself for him, he'd gladly do the same for her in a heartbeat.

"Because I love you, Cam," he'd lay with her for as long as it took until she finally understood.

* * *

**June 20** **th** **2011**

Derek kept his head down and lay as still as possible as the delta shaped UCAV soared overhead, searching for targets. Derek's fire team was equipped with a Stinger anti aircraft launcher, so shooting down the aerial predator wouldn't be a problem, apart from the fact that they were a reconnaissance patrol and had to avoid drawing attention to their presence. Derek felt John was being slightly cruel to him, sending him on a recon mission rather than a fighting patrol. Derek hadn't been able to take down that metal bitch, no matter how much he wanted to, and wanted to at least kill  _something_  metal, if he couldn't kill her. But no, he'd been ordered not to engage unless it was life or death.

He could see John's reasoning; Skynet all but owned the skies now. A few squadrons across the world had handfuls of operational aircraft, but they tended to drop like flies in almost every engagement against the UCAVs, leaving Skynet's birds of prey free to roam overhead and hunt down those who'd survived the nuclear attacks and managed to evade the T-1 patrols. John didn't seem too concerned with the T-1s, predecessors to the dreaded Centaur tanks that combed the ruins of LA in Derek's time and tore mercilessly through the resistance's ranks with their plasma turrets. No, John felt the real threat came from Skynet's airborne minions, and had assigned over half the company to search Colorado for UCAV airfields.

Derek peeked back up and saw the runway was now clear, and watched as another UCAV taxied for takeoff after being fuelled and armed by maintenance drones. Robots made by robots, serviced and maintained by robots; in Derek's mind that was the stupidest idea ever thought up in the long, sad history of stupid ideas. Derek marked off on his map the location of the airfield; what used to be Buckley Air Force Base just outside the city of Aurora, nearly eighty miles from Cheyenne Mountain. Derek was too disciplined to speak into his radio when he was this close to the base; even if the UCAVs couldn't hear him, Skynet probably had sensors around the perimeter wire that could detect sound and movement.

He stuck his hands over his ears to block out the roar of a second unmanned drone aircraft taking off very close to him, the UCAV flying right over his head as it ascended into the sky to hunt down any poor souls caught out in the open. He counted up all the unmanned aircraft he cold see, several dozen at least. He took out his notebook and started to write down the various models and their numbers. He glared long and hard at the airfield, trying to build up a mental picture so he could accurately brief John on its layout and defences. John would no doubt send all available forces to take down the massive airfield; destroying it would put a large dent in Skynet's air supremacy in the region. Once they'd demolished the airfield he'd then see about taking another crack at Cameron. He'd stashed a tin of thermite powder in his quarters and had already come up with – what he thought- was an ingenious plan to slag the metal once and for all.

Derek wondered for a moment whether or not he was obsessing too much over the machine. It had its uses, he'd admit. It knew more about Skynet than anyone or anything else, and although he'd never admit it, it was actually doing a decent job of keeping John safe – physically, at least. But Derek was still obsessed with the possibility she'd go bad and kill them all.

A faint red glow from the other side of the base caught Derek's attention. Two tiny red pinpricks in the distance that faded after a moment. Derek peered through the night sight of his M4 and saw nothing. For all he knew, it was part of the base's normal functions. Probably just landing lights or the blip of some unknown piece of machinery; nothing worth getting worked up over, he decided. Once he'd taken down and memorised everything he deemed important about layout of the base, he silently peeled away, the rest of his men following close behind. They had a long hike back to the Stryker and Derek wanted to get there before daylight, mere hours away. If Derek had looked closer, he'd have seen the two red dots reappear in the distance as they zoomed in on him.

* * *

There was no way it could follow Derek Reese without being seen and destroyed, which would prevent it from succeeding in its primary mission to terminate John Connor. That's what had prevented it from following him the last time. It couldn't allow itself to be seen, not until its target was in range. This particular unit had gotten smart over the years - nowhere near on a par with Cameron, but it had developed far greater intelligence than any other infiltration unit had ever achieved.

It hadn't located John Connor yet, but it knew that wherever he was, he was protected. The rogue TOK model was with him, and its strength and intelligence surpassed its own. Derek Reese was with him, and while human, it knew he was a formidable and unpredictable fighter.

More soldiers were with him and, the infiltrator's probability matrix determined, with John Connor as well. They were different from the malnourished, fearful resistance fighters of the future, and the unit concluded they were well trained, well equipped, professional soldiers. It had seen the weapons they possessed – including antitank weaponry that would make short work of any Terminator - and knew that any direct attack would result in termination before it could carry out its mission. The odds of successfully terminating John Connor under such circumstances were less than 5 percent.

Instead it would wait patiently and let the target come to _it_. It knew that the four men Derek Reese had led were simply a reconnaissance patrol, too few and too lightly armed to attack the Skynet UCAV facility, and that more human troops would certainly arrive later to attack such a strategically important target. The chances were high that John Connor would personally lead the assault, and it would lay in wait for him. It would wait until a clear opportunity presented itself, and then John Connor would be terminated.


	7. Aurora

**June 22nd 2011**

John stretched his arms and legs as he left the briefing room after a  _long_  discussion with Perry, Ellison, and Davenport over the state of their supplies, and headed for the small storage room Cameron had set up as an impromptu workshop. He was ashamed to admit he'd nearly fallen asleep during the briefing, it had been so dull. He'd come to learn over the two months since Judgement Day that being the leader of the human resistance wasn't all gunfights and thrilling heroics.

They had plenty of ammunition from Fort Carson, so much in fact that most of it had to be cached on the ruined base because they simply didn't have the room at Cheyenne Mountain – which had never been intended to house combat troops. Food was aplenty for now; there were enough tinned, dried, and frozen supplies in the base to feed a whole division. Ironically, they'd had too much in the way of food, and most of the fresh and frozen foods they couldn't fit in Cheyenne Mountain's walk in freezers had been left to spoil. Much of the non perishable foods and field rations that couldn't fit into Cheyenne had been cached in Fort Carson along with the ammunition, and John had established a squad to guard it and maintain the supply line. He'd also established a permanent rapid reaction force of twenty men and the two Bradley M3s to respond to any threat to either Cheyenne Mountain or Fort Carson, which could be ready to deploy in under five minutes.

Fuel was a bigger concern; while they had plenty of it at Fort Carson as well as food and ammunition, what they on the abandoned base was all there was for now. Sending the fuel trucks to resupply proved dangerous, as the tankers were unarmed and needed escorts everywhere they went. Usually the tanks and other vehicles would simply refuel at Fort Carson before heading out on patrols - a safer, although less efficient and more time consuming alternative. John had decided to start sending out scavenging parties to hunt the surrounding areas for intact supplies, as well as to start rationing meals to make what they had last longer.

Logistics really wasn't his strongest suite, John realised, and he decided he'd have to appoint a quartermaster to take stock of their supplies. Meanwhile, he had over half a dozen mission reports from various recon patrols to go over; a large, fairly disorganised looking stack of papers tucked under his arm.

John opened the door to Cameron's 'workshop' and walked past the vast rows of shelving until he saw her, sat at a table with her back turned to him, tinkering with something. As quietly as he could he crept up behind her - despite knowing she could probably hear him anyway - until he was inches from her. He slowly wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek as she melted into him and stopped working on whatever it was she was doing.

"Hey, what're you up to?" John asked, recognising the spare Terminator parts on the table.

"Adapting the T-Triple 8 power cells to power the base when the generators run out of fuel," she budged off her seat to make room for him and sat down on his lap. John winced at first until she shifted her weight slightly to make it more comfortable for him. Weighing just over two hundred pounds meant she didn't exactly crush him, but she had to be careful about spreading her weight out evenly, as they'd found out on several occasions during their 'alone time.'

"Did you do that in the future, too?"

"No, but it seemed like something I should do now. Without power you won't be able to talk to other resistance units." John took a good look at her work and her schematic drawings, not understanding any of it.

"Forget 'Tin Miss'," John said, "I think 'Genius' is a better nickname for you."

"I have many nicknames," Cameron replied, leaning back into John.

"Like what?" John enquired.

"Lieutenant Davenport called me 'Macguyver' after I created the first batch of thermite rounds. Most of the soldiers call me 'Freak.'"

"Just ignore them," John took her hand in his, "though I can see the 'Macguyver' thing; you  _are_  pretty inventive, Cam." He pushed the pile of mission reports on the table and leaned back, sliding his hands over Cameron's and lacing their fingers together.

"Are those the mission reports?" Cameron asked him, making conversation.

"Yeah, I haven't gone over them yet because I  _had_  to have that logistics meeting with, and I haven't found anywhere quiet to read them. I swear Cam, I didn't realise being a general meant so much homework; it's like high school all over again." Cameron smiled, remembering how bad at homework John was back then, and how she used to do it all for him. She'd refuse now if he asked;  _now_  it was something he needed to do for himself.

"You could use your office," Cameron suggested helpfully; not that she wanted him to go. She still took every opportunity to be alone with him, even if they were just working.

" _I've got an office?"_  John asked, incredulous. "Why am I just finding this out  _now?"_  He'd been 'General Connor' for just over two months; eight weeks of leading the soldiers of Cheyenne Mountain and organising resistance across the world, and he  _swore_  nobody had told him about any office. He was fine where he was for now, he'd go hunting for his elusive office later. Really, he just wanted to spend some time with Cameron while he worked, even though they'd probably not get much work done if they were alone together.

John noticed something on the table that definitely  _wasn't_  anything to do with her work. "Where'd you get that?" John pointed at a broken, grimy looking Rubik's cube. Several of the coloured pieces were either broken or missing, and there were cracks running down one side.

"One of the soldiers found it." Cameron answered as she took the cube in question and tried to twist and turn it. "It's problematic," she said as she narrowed her eyes at the toy.

"Yeah, it looks pretty beaten up," John replied, looking closer. Several of the coloured squares had fallen off completely, and Cameron couldn't twist several parts without breaking them, which it looked to John like she already had. It struck John as odd that a super intelligent AI, even a sentient one like Cameron, could have trouble with a Rubik's cube. "Have you ever done one of those before, Cam?"

"No. I've never seen one before."

"Well, you're doing better than I ever did. I always gave up after a few minutes. How long have you been playing with it?"

"Eighteen hours and fifty four minutes, over three days," she replied, taking the cube off the desk and playing with it once more. She'd probably deigned her sleep mode in favour of playing with the Rubik's cube; John knew she'd obsess over the cube until she solved it, which he judged would be impossible, looking at the state of it. She had tendencies to play and fiddle with things like that; he remembered back at their house in Colorado Springs she'd developed a preference for puzzles or games that involved putting things together or taking them apart. Simple, childish games that John had grown out of years ago, but Cameron found fascinating.

Cameron stared at it with burning intensity as she tried to twist the top layer left to find it stuck halfway through its rotation. John watched silently with interest as she twisted it the other way, and it became stuck again. She tried turning centre column downwards, hoping to loosen the top layer at the same time, but put too much strength into the move and frowned as the cube shattered, squares flew all over the table and floor. She stared at the pieces scattered on the table with an expression John read as confused and very upset. Anyone else would find it strange that emotionally, she was like a child at times; but John knew she was still developing and tried to help encourage her growth in any way he could.

"Don't worry Cam; I once threw one of those things against a wall and smashed it because I couldn't do it." Cameron pouted, clearly frustrated at not being able to solve the cube. "Besides, I can think of something even more fun than that. I locked the door on the way in." He winked at her as he lightly stroked her thigh with his fingers and kissed his way up her neck. It took a moment for her to get the hint, but Cameron got up off John, turned around and sat on the edge of the table, pulling John closer and into a deep, passionate kiss. John decided the mission reports could wait.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Cameron left the room to put the spare Terminator parts back in their quarters, while John picked up the broken pieces of the Rubik's cube and put them into a small bag for safekeeping and quickly glanced over the reports to get the gist of them. Before John could find Cameron again, he ran into Perry.

"Connor, Major Baum's just brought his patrol back. He said they found something big."

"Okay, tell Derek we'll debrief in a few minutes, and get Davenport, Grant, and Ellison here as well."

Perry nodded, not bothering to verbally reply. The infantry captain had come to accept John's leadership and followed his orders to the letter, but still made no secret of his opinions of John - or Cameron, for that matter. Perry seemed to have very little patience with Cameron, especially; probably due to the fact that she'd humiliated him in Fort Carson by pinning him against a wall and making him seem weak in front of his men. Since then he'd snapped at her whenever she'd had to ask him for anything. The man had anger issues to rival Derek's, John thought. He hated Cameron now; John dreaded to think what Perry would do when he found out what Cameron really was.

Perry wasn't the only one who looked strangely at Cameron. John had heard all the rumours flying around about him and her; they'd speculated about everything from the nature of their relationship to how and why they knew exactly how to fight Skynet. He particularly liked the one that he and Cameron were actually CIA or some other shady government agency that likely had a hand in Skynet's creation. Others were convinced that Cameron and Derek were father and daughter; a rumour that pissed off Derek to no end, and made John chuckle for that reason alone.

John allowed the rumours to fly around; it gave something to take the men's minds off the daily worries of Skynet and fighting the machines. He supposed that in the years to come, some of those rumours would add to his 'legendary' status as a 'hero' and 'saviour'- something he loathed but knew would be necessary to keep morale high during the worst years of the war, when all would seem lost.

He walked back to his quarters and saw Cameron sat stock still on the bed, staring at the wall and looking deep in contemplation.

"Derek's back," John said as he put the pieces of Rubik's cube into a drawer.

"He spat at me," Cameron replied. John sighed as he sat down next to her.  _Would Derek_ ever _accept her_? He wondered.

"What did you say to him?"

"I said 'hello Derek, I hope your patrol went well', then he spat in my face."

"Did you do anything back?" John asked her.

"No, he didn't attack me."

John shook his head and closed his eyes. "You're disappointed with me?" Cameron asked, turning to him.

"Not you. Derek; I was hoping he'd come around  _eventually_. I don't get why he hates you so much." John still hadn't found out why Derek hated Cameron so passionately; he doubted it was just because she was a Terminator. He guessed she'd probably done something horrible to him in the future, but with her memory wiped by his future self, she had no recollection and Derek simply refused to talk about it. John just wished Derek could at least see that Cameron  _now_  was a world away from the machine his future self had sent back to him four years ago.

"I don't care what Derek thinks," Cameron said simply. Anyone else's opinion of her was irrelevant; as long as they didn't threaten John or come between the pair of them, what they did, said, or thought was of no concern to her.

"Do you care what  _anyone_  thinks of you?" John asked.

"Just you."

"That's it?" Cameron nodded. "What about what  _you_ think?"

"I don't understand," Cameron cocked her head in confusion.

"Well, don't take this the wrong way Cam, but whenever you're upset you tend to start with 'I'm just a machine;' like you don't matter because you're made of metal instead of bone. I don't want you even  _thinking_ like that anymore, okay?"

"Okay." She didn't quite understand his meaning; she  _was_  a machine, even if she had emotions it didn't change what she was. But she'd do it for him. She didn't get it, but if it was important to John, then it was important to her too.

"Good." John hated the crap Cameron had to put up with and sincerely hoped she really didn't care what Derek said to her. He pulled her closer and decided just to lay with her for a moment, closing his eyes and simply taking a moment just to relax together.

* * *

In the briefing room, John sat down at the head of the large oak table that dominated the room. Cameron to his right, Derek sat at John's left, as far from Cameron as he could get. Perry, Davenport, Grant, and Ellison sat around the table, waiting for he briefing to start. All the highest ranking members of the resistance were present;  _a good Job there's no Terminator here right now,_ John mused, and then chided himself for tempting fate like that.

"You said 'a few minutes' half an hour ago," Perry said impatiently.

"I'm  _so_ sorry," John replied with more than a hint of sarcasm. "I completely forgot it's almost lunchtime. I'll try my best not to keep you long; I know how cranky you get when you're hungry." The captain frowned at the chuckles around the table; Connor had a talent for embarrassing him like that.

Lieutenant Grant started the debriefing off. While Derek had been scouting Aurora, Grant had had three separate squads from 2nd Platoon out searching other likely sites for Skynet activity and had found several small factories that had started churning out T-1s, T-2s, and UCAVs, plus reports of similar finds from smaller resistance units dotted around the state.

"We found an airfield; Buckley Air Force Base, just outside Aurora," Derek started. "Skynet UCAVs; looked like sixty plus, at least. The whole base is automated now, and T-1 patrols around the perimeter stretch out for about three miles." Derek had drawn on a sheet of paper the layout of the base and went over in detail all the defences they'd spotted, and the best angles of attack.

"What about Aurora itself," John asked, "any survivors?"

"No, everyone's fucked," Derek answered. "The city's intact but everyone's dead."

"Chemical weapons; probably mustard or nerve gas," Cameron replied as Derek simply glared at her, annoyed at the cold, clinical way she spoke. "Skynet would capture rather than destroy the airfields; it's easier than building new ones." John guessed as well that Skynet wouldn't have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out every city on Earth anyway, and chemical weapons were probably its second wave of attack; wiping out the human populace while keeping their infrastructure intact for Skynet to use.

"Some day I want to know how you know all this," Perry frowned. John ignored him; sometimes he was tempted to tell them everything, but doubted they were ready to hear it.  _Maybe they'll never be ready_ , he thought.

A plan was already forming in John's mind; the base had to be destroyed, obviously. Taking out Skynet's aircraft would make fighting the T1-s and 2s on the ground a lot easier, and they'd be able to resume daylight operations without constant fear of air attack. John laid out his plan to the group in front of him: he'd lead an attack on the airfield while Grant and Derek would lead similar missions on factories to serve as a distraction. They'd attack first; their assaults would no doubt be met with air support from Buckley AFB, which would be shot down by Stinger teams lying in ambush between the various raids and the airfield, leaving fewer aircraft to defend the base from John's force.

Perry supported the idea but balked when John refused to use armoured support against the airbase.

"What's the damn point of having the tanks if we're not going to use them, Connor?"

" _I_ won't use them. Armour against air support? We won't stand a chance." Perry conceded the point to John. "Derek and Grant can take the tanks, we'll stick with the Humvees; keep light, fast and mobile." Although Cameron agreed with him, she'd feel much better if John stayed back from the battle; observing inside a Bradley or Stryker, a mile away from the fighting, or better yet, directing the mission from inside Cheyenne Mountain. But she knew he was adamant about leading this mission himself.

It had gone past protecting him; she'd created various scenarios in her head and knew if John died she'd likely become catatonic and freeze on the spot, replaying memories of her and John over and over until her power cells depleted or she was destroyed. There would be nothing for her if John died; everything she'd become through him would die as well, and she'd be nothing. She could never convince him to stay, so the next best course of action available was to accompany him and keep him out of harm's way as much as possible.

"Derek and Grant; take two squads each and split the tanks and Bradleys between you. I'll take half of 1st Platoon. We'll leave just after last light. Perry, hold the fort while we're gone." With that, John called the briefing to an end and started to make his own preparations for the mission. He'd leave Ellison in charge and Perry would remain on the base to lead the rapid reaction force in case they were needed. He ignored Perry's irate glare at being left behind yet again."

* * *

The Terminator watched as the human convoy approached the airfield. It knew they were planning to attack the facility and destroy as many of Skynet's aircraft as possible in order to keep Skynet from having total air supremacy. It even knew that if they were successful, Skynet's position in the state of Colorado would be severely compromised, placing the humans here on an almost equal footing with Skynet, whose units would be more vulnerable without air support. It knew all of this, and yet it didn't care.

What else it knew, was that there was a significant probability that John Connor was inside one of the four armoured Humvees approaching the perimeter. The T-888 knew the significance of the airfield, knew Skynet's dominance in the region would be crippled if the airfield were destroyed or even captured, yet it was willing to sacrifice as many machines as possible to destroy John Connor; the one human Skynet truly feared. It would allow the humans to enter and lay waste to the airfield. It would do whatever it took to Terminate John Connor.

John Connor, like Skynet, was thorough and meticulous. He would ensure every single aerial unit was destroyed before he would return home. In doing so, the T-888 predicted John Connor's actions and created its own plan accordingly. It would hide itself where its target would certainly come, and wait until John Connor had all but won the battle, when he would let his guard down. That would be the moment when John Connor would be terminated.

* * *

John lay silent on the ground, staring intently at the airfield through the night sight on his AUG. Cameron lay next to him, not needing any such night vision equipment with her advanced eyesight, but still going through the motions to blend in with the others. John suppressed a grin at the trouble he'd had in Aurora trying to avoid Cameron. They'd arrived at the city well ahead of schedule and John had led a quick reconnaissance mission to see if they could find any supplies to tag for a salvage team to retrieve later. The reason he'd wanted to avoid Cameron was because of an idea he'd had while driving through the seemingly deserted city, avoiding the hundreds of bloated, putrid corpses that lined the streets; the unfortunate victims of Skynet's chemical attacks.

John had gone off alone with Davenport, marching down the city centre and into a toy store, remembering what had happened with Cameron in her workshop earlier. He'd not found what he'd been looking for but instead took a pair of paintbrushes, half a dozen small tins of brightly coloured paints, and a tube of glue. Davenport had questioned what they were doing there, but John had simply told the lieutenant to trust him. Davenport had given him an odd look but said nothing more, knowing there was always some kind of method to his commander's madness that others couldn't always see.

Now as he lay still, controlling his breathing, he listened in on his radio for signs that Derek's and Lieutenant Grant's platoons were in position. He was surprised they'd met such little resistance on the way to the base; two of the sixteen men taking part in this mission were equipped with Barrett M82 .50 calibre sniper rifles, and had picked off the T-1s patrolling around the base with ease; armour piercing rounds penetrating through their 'heads' and through to the relatively primitive CPUs.

He gently squeezed Cameron's arm to get her attention and smiled when she turned to face him. She returned his smile, but with less enthusiasm than he'd hoped for. She wasn't happy about him wandering off without her, more so that he wouldn't tell her what he'd been up to. Even though she made no obvious signs that she was upset, John knew her well enough to pick it up. She'd understand later, he knew. He'd tell her what he was up to, but not yet.

Through the night sight he saw rows of UCAVs lined up on at one end of the runway, and he guessed even more sheltered inside the hangars. John saw that Derek's estimate of sixty aircraft was way off; there looked like a hundred at least, of all varieties. John counted over fifty X-47 Pegasus aircraft, plus a small squadron of unmanned Aurora hypersonic bombers, and dozens of X-52 Hunter Killer UCAVs, referred to by Derek as 'Mini HKs.' They stood out among the other aircraft; easily defined by the vectored thrust engines sticking out from their wingtips and crude, almost insect-like appearance. The HK's and Aurora's were top priority, as well as the runway, John decided. HK's needed no runway to take off and were the biggest immediate threat to them; as well as the Auroras that were probably carrying chemical weapons in their bomb bays.

According to Cameron, they were the ancestors to the dreaded HK patrol aircraft that ruled the skies in the future and hunted down any humans stupid or unlucky enough to be caught out in the open. John guessed that at least some of the unmanned aircraft were loaded with bombs full of nerve or mustard gas to use on whatever few human populations remained. If they took out the airfield now, he realised, not only would they cripple Skynet's air power in Colorado, but they could potentially save thousands of lives.

 _"John, its Ellison."_ The former special agent's voice rang clear through his radio earpiece as he maintained communications between all the units taking part in the operation. _"First and Second Platoon are in position and standing by, as are the Stinger teams you requested. Jessica Morgan reports her unit in Denver is standing by to attack Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport."_

John couldn't help but grin slightly as Cameron, who'd heard the entire transmission, narrowed her eyes at the mere mention of Jessica Morgan, who was currently leading a similar operation to John's airfield attack, on a small airport north of Denver. He was flattered at Cameron's seething jealousy, and knew that if the blonde woman ever so much as  _looked_  at John wrong again, Cameron wouldn't hesitate to rip her head off. The former Denver cop turned fighter, although resourceful and efficient, had annoyed John to the extent he wasn't sure he'd even try to stop Cameron if she did.

"James, tell all units to commence attack and Stinger teams to stand by. We'll light it up here when the Mini HKs take off." Ellison didn't reply, and John didn't wait for him to. John counted off in his head. One minute went past, then another. He tried to picture Derek's tanks and Bradleys rolling around and blasting the factories six ways from Sunday, joined in by rocket and mortar fire coming from their fire support squads, and coming up against T-1s and T-2s that were  _hopefully_  outmatched by the speed and ferocity of their attacks.

Four minutes went by until the first Mini HKs took off, flying in groups of four towards the various battles raging miles away.

"James, tell the Stinger teams they've got incoming; ETA five minutes." John turned his attention back to the airfield in front of him and switched his radio frequency to speak to the two squads with him now and told his mortar team to aim for the runway; everyone else would begin their attack as the first mortar rounds struck the runway.

In the silent night air, the hollow  _whoosh_  as the mortars left their tubes was easily audible, and followed a few seconds later by a massive explosion as the first round fell wide of the runway and instead smashed into an Aurora bomber.

John leapt to his feet and ran towards the perimeter fence; beaten to it by one of the Humvees that drove straight through the wire, the mounted .50 calibre machine gun barked loudly as the gunner fired a storm of lead into a row of Mini HKs. Cameron beside him, John ran forward past the shattered fence and into the base itself, then hit the floor as T-1s emerged from storage hangars to engage the human attackers. Both John and Cameron readied their M203s and each put a grenade into the UGVs before they could fire a single round.

John looked around for a moment and saw the two other fire teams had advanced into the base as well, followed up by a second and third Humvee; the gunners fired relentlessly at approaching T-1 drones as they rushed to defend the airfield. John wasn't taking any chances of another Fort Carson incident happening again; every other man was equipped with an M-32, and those who weren't had either M4s with under slung grenade launchers or M240 machine guns, with enough ammunition to fight a small war. Every single soldier taking part also had a 66mm LAW disposable rocket launcher as well. Over half of which were fired off at UCAVs and T-1s in the first ten seconds of the attack; streaking across the airfield and smashing into their various targets with devastating effect. Speed and aggression were the basic principles of this attack.

"Alpha Team, take out the UCAVs and hangars," John shouted through his radio to be heard over the roar of .50 calibre gunfire from the nearby Humvee as it sped past to engage more T-1 drones. "Bravo Team, destroy the control tower and fuel depot; Charlie Team, you're on fire support. Engage and destroy the T-1s." John ran forward ahead of Cameron, who easily caught up but was somewhat annoyed at John rushing ahead, stopping her from protecting him, if even for a split second. Far from feeling any fear now, like in the two previous battles he'd fought, he felt a rush of adrenaline surge into him. He wasn't scared, he was  _excited,_ buzzed _._ All that time spent cooped up in the mountain had left him relishing a fight like this.

Both John and Cameron joined Alpha Team as they pushed forwards towards the runway. Already, UCAVs were taxiing for takeoff at the far end of the runway, as HK aircraft took off vertically and were shot down by the fire support team's Stinger missile before they could turn to engage John's ground forces. The mortar rounds fell onto rows of unmanned aircraft parked on the left hand side of the runway, opposite the hangars. A series of massive explosions off to the right caught John's attention as two of Bravo Team's LAW rockets erupted from their tubes and streaked into the airfield's fuel depot, igniting the jet fuel inside the massive tanks and causing an inferno so intense John could feel the heat from several hundred metres away.

More T-1s rolled out of the hangars as John approached, he dropped to one knee and fired off several bursts of automatic fire at the drone as it powered up its miniguns. John's fired was joined by Cameron's, and together their concentrated fire tore through its armour and shredded the critical systems inside, rendering it harmless.

"'Macguyver's' about right," John grinned at Cameron. "These thermite rounds really do the trick." Cameron beamed with pride for an instant but said nothing. Instead she tackled John to the ground as more T-1s emerged and opened fire, their opening salvo cut through the air where John had been a split second ago. Before either of them could even think about returning fire the pair of UGVs, a rapid series of grenade shots struck the offending machines and simply blew their armoured torsos apart.

"Who's, your, daddy!" Davenport screamed as he emptied his M32 into John's would be killers, clearly having the time of his life.

 _"Connor, enemy UCAV preparing to take off, we don't have a clear shot,"_ the voice of the fire support team leader sounded on John's radio. John had been too distracted by the T-1s trying to kill him to notice the large shape of an Aurora bomber starting to accelerate down the runway. Both John and Cameron opened up with their rifles as the bomber hurtled towards them; thermite rounds gouging deep holes into the aircraft but not stopping it. They simultaneously triggered their grenade launchers; the 40mm explosive rounds struck the UCAV's nose and tore the landing gear from the fuselage, causing the Aurora to skid to a halt in the middle of the runway, less than fifty feet from them. Destroying that one Aurora left all other aircraft – except the HKs – useless and vulnerable, as the flaming wreck of the bomber blocked the runway and prevented any other UCAVs from taking off. But John wasn't yet satisfied.

As more rockets hurtled upwards from either Bravo or Charlie Team and obliterated the control tower, John, Cameron, and Alpha Team split up to destroy the aircraft inside the hangars, leaving those outside to Charlie Team and the mortars and rockets from the fire support team at the base perimeter. There were three large hangars that lined one side of the runway; each looked large enough to house a squadron of UCAVs at least. John ran towards the nearest one as Cameron turned back to fire on another group of T-1s that seemed to come from nowhere.

"John, wait!" Cameron called out, almost desperately. She couldn't protect him in the hangar  _and_ fight the UGVs at the same time. She was finding John's new attitude in battle annoying; yes John was being very brave and daring, and his actions now would inspire the troops later on, but he was also being reckless and taking unnecessary risks with his life. John either ignored or failed to hear her plea, she didn't know which. She ducked, dived, and rolled to avoid their sustained bursts of fire, then emptied her magazine into the head of one T-1 and took the other out with her grenade launcher.

She quickly reloaded as she ran towards the hangar John had entered, desperate to catch up with and protect him, but was pinned down by fire from the massive form of a T-2 approaching from the space between two hangars. Cameron kept low to the ground and fired her thermite rounds at the machine, which did little to pierce the thicker armour. Unable to move without being torn apart by a storm of 30mm cannon rounds, her salvation came from a pair of Javelin rockets launched by Delta Team, providing fire support. The two rockets ploughed into the top half of the drone, shattering its head and sensor systems. Without further delay, Cameron rushed after John.

John looked inside and saw four more Aurora bombers parked inside, being tended to by dozens of small, semi autonomous service drones that rolled back and forth with weapons and replacement parts for the bombers, ignoring John as they worked. The sheer size of the UCAVs, much larger than the other ones, was enough to tell John they needed to be destroyed. Cameron had told him the Aurora bombers had been key Skynet assets in the past of her timeline, and flew fast enough that no missile could ever shoot them down. John also knew they were probably used to drop the chemical weapons over the few remaining cities and towns left, sentencing it's victims to gruesome and torturous deaths.

He quickly shouldered his LAW, took aim at the furthest Aurora and fired, the rocket took less than half a second to impact the bomber and the concussion from the blast almost knocked John off his feet. He dropped the spent launcher and brought his rifle to bear in the same motion, firing a grenade from the under slung launcher into another bomber. He shifted his aim and hosed down another UCAV with 5.56mm thermite rounds until his rifle clicked empty, ignoring the further concussions of secondary explosions as either the fuel or weapons inside the first destroyed bomber ignited and caused spectacular secondary explosions that tore into the frames of the other planes and sent shrapnel flying in all directions. John smiled at his handiwork; none of those planes would ever fly again.

As he turned to leave the hangar, movement among the flames caught his eye. He spun around just in time to see the imposing shape of an all too familiar Terminator emerge from its hiding place inside the weapons bay of one of the lesser damaged Auroras. The eyes shone bright red through the false blue irises and blonde hair seemed to glow before the backdrop of flames behind it, as if it had just emerged from the very fires of hell to claim him. Its face was a grim, emotionless mask of death and pain. The face that haunted his nightmares far more than the various faces and shapes of the T-1000 ever had.

 _"Cromartie,"_  John whispered, not quite believing what he saw in front of him. He'd never thought Cromartie would have found him here, the last he'd seen of his Triple 8 nemesis had been in LA when the murderous machine had killed Sarah. He'd never know that Cromartie had calculated that John would attack the airfield and had been lying in ambush for days. John fumbled with a fresh magazine, eager to scrap the Triple 8 that had slaughtered his mom, as Cromartie fired off a burst from his assault rifle. John fell to the ground and writhed in pain as the rounds hit his torso, he could hardly breathe and for a moment he saw stars. It took every ounce of strength John had to lift his head up to look at his attacker. He wished he hadn't have bothered; he looked up only to discover the last thing his eyes would ever see was Cromartie lining up his assault rifle to blow his head off.

Cameron burst through into the hangar before Cromartie could deliver the killing shot and fired a burst from her own rifle at the Triple 8; thermite tipped rounds bit deep into Cromartie's coltan armoured chassis as Cameron charged the larger Terminator. She punched and kicked wildly at him as she felt an anger build up inside her that she'd never before experienced and vented her white hot rage, battering Cromartie with everything she had as her eyes glowed a piercing bright blue. She was stronger, faster, smarter, and more agile than her adversary.

She launched a rapid fire volley of punches into Cromartie's face, striking with such force that the skin was flayed from the metal skull in several places. Cromartie managed to block her last punch and slammed his head into her face, forcing her head back as he sent a vicious kick to Cameron's midsection, forcing her to the ground. She rolled to the side in time to avoid Cromartie's heavy, booted foot stamping down on her face, and quickly jumped back up to her feet. Cromartie lunged at her and threw a fist towards Cameron's head. She easily dodged the blow, grabbed the Triple 8's arm and spun around, using Cromartie's inertia to throw him into the flaming wreck of the Aurora bombers.

Wasting no more time, she picked up her Steyr AUG and emptied the magazine into the spot where she had thrown Cromartie, followed up by grenade from the under slung M203. The inferno raging inside the hangar had become so intense that Cameron didn't know if she'd managed to hit Cromartie with any of her shots. The flames obscured both her vision and her motion tracking senses. She calculated an eighty nine percent chance that Cromartie had been destroyed. The fact the nothing came out of the flames to attack her or John seemed to confirm her calculations, and she decided the threat from Cromartie was gone; for now, at least.

Cameron dragged John further away from the spreading flames, to the mouth of the hangar entrance, and dropped to her knees to assess John's wounds; tearing open the coltan reinforced flak jacket as tears flowed freely from her eyes. She'd been livid before, both at Cromartie's attack on John, and for John's recklessness, but any feelings of anger were quickly replaced by fear as John lay bleeding on the ground. This was why she'd wanted him to stay back in Cheyenne Mountain, or at least not run off without her like he had. Most of the shots weren't too bad; the coltan in the jacket had worked wonders. The bullet impacts had knocked the wind out of him, and he'd have little more than bruised ribs from most of the hits. One round, however, had struck the jacket's zipper and penetrated right through his stomach.

Cromartie had gotten extremely lucky with his shot; the round had struck such a small weakness in the jacket and punched through John's stomach. Cameron didn't need to scan John to see he was in bad shape; he was losing a lot of blood and was barely conscious.

John at first hadn't felt the high velocity rounds hit him, but a few moments after he fell, the shock wore off and he felt like his stomach had been shredded and cried out in agony. Cameron couldn't bear to see him in pain and ripped a morphine injector from around John's neck, jabbed the needle into his thigh and watched as the powerful painkiller started to kick in within seconds, visibly relaxing him to the point where he no longer screamed out in pain.

"John?" Cameron whimpered. Fearing he was dead, she ran another scan and found his pulse was erratic, but still there. She struggled but barely managed to pull herself together; she knew that it would take time for a human shot in the stomach to bleed to death, but that cold logic had failed her in an instant when she saw her love gunned down. She needed to suppress her feelings and concentrate on saving John.

"Man down in hangar three, I need a medic." She spoke into her radio, her voice not betraying a single ounce of the fear she felt as she wrapped a field dressing around John's stomach. The exit wound was smaller than it could have been, no doubt helped by the flak jacket. Within seconds the field dressing was saturated with John's blood. She threw it away and grabbed another, wrapping it tightly around him. She couldn't suppress all her emotion, no matter how hard she tried; the same thought kept running through her head.  _Please don't die, I need you John._ Please _don't die!_

"Hey Cam," John smiled at her as he forced his eyes to open, despite the overwhelming sense of fatigue that came over him; a result of both blood loss and the morphine surging through his veins. "Where's Cromartie?"

"Gone," she replied.

"Did you kick his ass?"

"No, that isn't a Triple 8's weak..." it took her moment to remember what that phrase really implied. "Yes, I kicked his ass." She smiled at him as she took one of his hands tightly in hers, not wanting to let go for fear she'd lose him. John said nothing but smiled up at her and used the last of his strength to gently squeeze her hands before he closed his eyes and let the morphine take him into sweet oblivion.


	8. Tensions

Cameron gently stroked John's hair as she held the IV bag up and hung it from a nail in the wall, taking note of the dark and dismal surroundings she was in. After they had laid waste to the Skynet airfield they had driven John to the Denver resistance base. John had remained unconscious since they'd left the airfield and had lost at least four pints of blood before Cameron barely managed to stop the bleeding. The bullet had damaged a major artery connected to John's stomach and if not for the IVs carried by Sergeant Ford, 3rd platoon's medic, John would have died on the base. He was stable now; Cameron and Sergeant Ford had stitched up the entry and exit wounds, and as far as they could tell there was no major organ damage. John had been extremely lucky, but wasn't out of the woods yet.

Cameron was far from happy at being stuck in the Denver base until the field ambulance Stryker arrived. They'd only be there for a few hours, but time seemed to slow down on Cameron's internal clock. Above all, she wanted John to be okay. After that, she simply wanted to get John back to Cheyenne Mountain; safely inside the subterranean base, surrounded by professional soldiers and treated in a clean infirmary by Charlie Dixon, who not only cared for John like the son he never had, but was also a talented medic. Instead, Cameron and John would have to wait for the Stryker to arrive, and then likely wait until dark to move out. Although most of the UCAVs had been wiped out or damaged beyond repair, others had been on operations away from the base at the time or had managed to take off, and the true benefit of the operation wouldn't be fully realised until the unmanned drones ran out of fuel and crashed to the ground.

Cheyenne Mountain was too far away, Davenport had insisted, and John would have bled out before they'd have gotten halfway there. Although Cameron agreed with him, she had argued against going to Denver, when there was a perfectly intact – albeit abandoned – hospital in Aurora.

The Denver base was underground, in the older, dried up, long unused sections of the Denver sewer system. Cameron had argued that John being inside a sewer for any length of time would risk infection to his wounds, but had lost the argument when Davenport countered that the Aurora hospital would be filled with hundreds of bodies of people who had been killed in the chemical weapons attacks and then left to rot; equally unsanitary conditions. Not to mention that the hospital was above ground and vulnerable to attack. Cameron had grudgingly settled for taking him to Denver; she wasn't happy about it, and she'd made that evident by not speaking more than a few words to anyone.

"How's John?" An unwanted presence in the room asked Cameron. Jessica Morgan; another reason Cameron hadn't wanted John to be taken to Denver. In the two hours since they'd arrived, Jessica had shown up to see John five times to ask on his condition, to get the same curt answers from Cameron each time. Cameron still ran threat assessments on the woman every time she saw her, and noted that Jessica Morgan was checking in on John far too much to be professional concern. Cameron knew that John would never leave her, least of all for Jessica Morgan – John had made that abundantly clear to her after she'd nearly torn herself apart with jealousy the last time. Still, she disliked the blonde woman being around John and had to constantly override an unconscious command to terminate Jessica.

"He's stable," Cameron answered bluntly.

"Does he need anything?" Jessica asked.

"Privacy," Cameron ignored Jessica as she pulled out another IV bag to keep John supplied with fluids. He needed a blood transfusion but Cameron refused to even attempt one within the sewer network, despite Jessica's promises that the tunnels they were in were old and long abandoned, and that the place was as clean as anywhere outside. While John was stable, she wouldn't risk an infection from performing a transfusion in what she saw as a dirty environment. In the future, they did transfusions on badly wounded resistance fighters in tunnels that made the one they were in look sterile in comparison; but none of the recipients had been her charge, and she had cared nothing for any of them – apart from Future John, and simply then because it was programmed into her. This John,  _her John,_  who now lay unconscious on the cot in front of her, she loved too much to risk it unless his condition worsened considerably.

Jessica moved next to Cameron and stripped the dressing off of John's wound. Cameron simply stared at her as she tore off what had been a perfectly good field dressing that she'd applied an hour ago, and wiped pure alcohol over the wound to keep it clean before placing a fresh dressing over it. Cameron noticed how Jessica's hands touched John's stomach too softly, and tracked the movement of Jessica's eyes as her gaze ran up and down John's body, lingering too much for Cameron's liking.

"You're here a lot." Cameron broke the stony silence between the two women.

Jessica crossed her arms and leaned back, taking a break from tending John's wounds. "I've got nowhere better to be," she said casually.

"Lieutenant Davenport probably wants to see you," Cameron tried again, making conversation in an awkward attempt to take Jessica's attention from John.

"I'm sure he would," Jessica rolled her eyes, clearly not interested.

"Lieutenant Davenport likes you; he talks a lot about you."

"I bet he does," She replied with a grin. "It was just sex, honey. Tell me you've never just  _hooked up_  with someone before.

"I've never 'hooked up' with someone before." Jessica smirked, thinking that Cameron was probably too simple to even know what sex was. She was clearly autistic, and obviously hadn't ever had a boyfriend; people like her were incapable of that kind of thing, she thought. She still had no idea what John and Cameron's relationship was; her best guess was that she was some kind of cousin – which would fit with some of the rumours about her, John, and Derek. Or maybe she was just some simple girl who John had found and taken pity on when the bombs had fallen.

The pair worked on John in an icy silence between them for twenty minutes, both of them deep in their respective thoughts, until Cameron decided she'd had enough of Jessica's fawning over  _her_  John.

"John doesn't like you," Cameron said curtly. She didn't know why she felt the urge to say that, but it felt good.

" _What?"_  Jessica replied, incredulous at Cameron's bluntness and total lack of tact. "I never said I liked John."

"Your body language indicates you're attracted to him. You're heart rate increases, your cheeks flush, your pupils dilate, and your eyes wonder over his body. John doesn't reciprocate those actions."

"That's it?" Jessica's face went red from embarrassment and anger, shocked that the autistic girl in front of her could read her so well. "That's how you know? Even if I  _did_  like John, what's it to  _you?"_

"No, John also said 'I don't like her,' referring to you."

"Fucking retard," Jessica mumbled under her breath as Cameron injected a syringe full of antibiotics into John's arm.

"Retard, moron, spastic, dumbass, simpleton, mentally feeble; I am none of those things." Jessica realised that Cameron was right. She'd been a cop before Judgement Day, and thought of herself as pretty observant; a trait that had kept her alive the past few months after the bombs had dropped. And when she looked closer she could see that behind that blank expression and total lack of social awareness, she got the impression of a cold intelligence far in excess of her own.  _Who the hell is this girl?_  She thought. Still, she'd never admit any of that out loud.

"Well, I'm guessing John  _does_  like you, if he keeps you tagging along like some kind of pet. God knows why, though. I guess he feels sorry for you."

"John..." Cameron never got to finish her sentence as John's eyes slowly opened.

"Will you  _shut up?_ I'm trying to sleep here," John snapped groggily as the light from a sodium bulb overhead threatened to burn through his eyes and into his brain.

"I'm sorry, John," Cameron replied, looking downcast.

"Not you, Cameron," John screwed his eyes shut again, blocking out the piercing light that assaulted his eyes and made his throbbing headache feel a hundred times worse.

"John, I..." Jessica started, but was quickly cut off by John.

"Leave Cameron be. And do you see the stars on my shoulder,  _Lieutenant_ Morgan?"

"Sorry,  _sir,"_  Jessica answered, her tail firmly between her legs as she realised that John clearly favoured Cameron's company over all others. She had no idea what the relationship was between the two of them; they were together all the time yet displayed no visible affection to each other at all. Strange behaviour if they were indeed a couple. It would explain why Cameron seemed so hostile towards her. Though Jessica wondered why John would enter a relationship with someone like her; sure, she was  _very_  attractive, but she wasn't all there in the head. Whatever it was, she'd never know or understand, she realised, and she'd never break it. John pulling rank on her – something she'd _never_  seen him do to anyone during her time at Cheyenne - proved that.

"How do you feel?" Cameron asked John.

"Like I've been  _shot,_ " John grinned sarcastically. He tried to pull himself into a sitting position and roared out in pain as his stitches tore open, blood gushed out of the wound as the artery Cameron had had so much trouble suturing opened up once more. Cameron quickly analysed the rate of blood loss and calculated he'd be dead in less than five minutes if she didn't stop it. Jessica Morgan was no help at all; she stood still, unsure of what to do.

"Get Sergeant Ford and Lieutenant Davenport," Cameron ordered Jessica.

"No, I can help, I..."

"John's lost too much blood, he needs a transfusion. Sergeant Ford and Lieutenant Davenport both have O positive blood types." She had to shout to be heard above the din of John's agonised screaming. As Jessica reluctantly left to find the two men she'd requested, Cameron quickly grabbed a morphine syringe and injected him. She couldn't bear seeing John in this much pain but forced herself to remain detached as she worked. Unfortunately for them both, she didn't have the time to wait until the powerful painkillers kicked in before trying to stop the bleeding.

"John," she cupped his face with both hands and brought her own face inches away from his. He stopped crying out and focussed as best as he could on her as she spoke. "I've got to stop the bleeding; this is going to hurt,  _a lot_." She gave him a quick kiss on the lips then tore off his dressing. As she stuck her fingers inside the wound and pulled it open, John's eyes bulged and he writhed in agony, letting out a bloodcurdling scream that filled Cameron with fear and guilt at the white hot pain she was putting him through.

She managed to pull it apart enough that she could slip her fingers into the wound and clamp the artery, stopping the flow of blood to his stomach. Suddenly, John's screams stopped, she immediately scanned him. The strain on his body from both the blood loss and the pain had been too much for him and his heart had given out. No pulse, no blood pressure. She was too late.

"John?  _John!"_  As John's condition degraded, Cameron's stony face melted into an expression of genuine fear. She started chest compressions, desperately trying to restart his heart. John was dying and it was destroying her. She grabbed a hypodermic needle from Ford's medical kit and jammed it into John's heart, injecting pure adrenaline into the organ in a desperate attempt to restart it.

"Please, John, don't leave me!"

* * *

**June 27th, 2011**

John opened his eyes to the blindingly bright glare of another light above him, and immediately closed them once again as the light became to intense and felt like it was burning his eyes out of his skull.  _What the hell happened to me?_  He struggled to remember, his mind coming up blank. He could tell he was drugged up to the eyeballs, and when he ran his hand over his stomach, feeling the bandages underneath, he realised it was for a very good reason. He opened his eyes and saw he was in the infirmary in Cheyenne Mountain.

"John?" Cameron leaned over him, the concern on her face plain to see, even in his groggy, drugged up state.

"Where am I? What the hell happened?"

"What do you remember, John?" Cameron asked him. His heart had stopped for nearly three minutes and this was the first time he'd been conscious since then; she was terrified at the small chance he could have suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen.

John racked his brain for several moments, struggling to remember. He remembered fire and massive explosions, blonde hair and glowing evil eyes, and then something about his stomach being torn open, immense pain, and then nothing.

"Cromartie," he slowly remembered. "He shot me."

"He shot you in the stomach," Cameron nodded her head. "We took you to Denver and stopped the bleeding. That was four days ago." John struggled to sit upright, not wanting to lay down any more as it made him feel completely helpless. He didn't want to feel like an invalid, even if he had been shot. Cameron gently helped him up into a sitting position, careful to keep his stitches from tearing. After four days unconscious, the wounds had started to heal to the point that tearing open was unlikely. But Cameron, by her very nature, wasn't one to take chances.

"Are you feeling better, John?" Cameron asked as she handed him a small cup of water.

"A little," he replied as he sipped the water slowly, "why?"

John's answer came in the form of a sharp smack to the side of his face, hard enough that it sounded like the crack of a whip and brought tears to his eyes."WHAT THE FUCK?" John snapped, not quite believing that Cameron had just slapped him.

"You were reckless. You shouldn't have run into the hangar without me."

"I can't exactly lead from behind a desk now, can I? You can't just wrap me up in cotton wool like Mom did. Anyway, I'm okay now; it's not like I died."

" _You did,_  John," Cameron replied, her voice intentionally blank and robotic; a trait John knew meant she was upset and angry. "Your heart stopped for two minutes and thirty eight seconds." Little did John know, but those two and a half minutes were the longest and worst that Cameron had ever had to endure since developing emotions. She'd nearly fallen apart when his heart had stopped.

"You can't seriously expect me to sit on my ass while I send people out there to die. That's no way to lead an army."

"You should have waited for me. I came under attack and had to fight off more T-1s."

"Sorry, Cam, I didn't see them-"

"Because you ran ahead without me," Cameron snapped at him. John had never seen her angry before, not  _really_  angry. She'd sulked before, stormed off when she was upset. But she'd never snapped or even raised her voice, let alone hit him. "That was dangerous, John. If you die-"

"I KNOW!" John shouted at her, he'd heard this all a million times before. "I'm too important. If I die, Skynet wins. You think I don't get that? I heard enough of that from Mom; I don't need it from you, okay?"

Cameron slapped him again in the exact same spot, stinging like hell and leaving the side of his face bright red. "Stop hitting me!" He yelled at her. "Tell me honestly, Cameron.  _Tell me_  that Future Me never led from the front; that I sat on my fat ass while I sent others to get blown apart!"

"No, Cameron's voice softened and she hung her head. "You led the most important missions yourself."

"So why should I sit behind a desk while he was the action hero? Am I not that guy yet? I'm not ready, is that what you're saying? What's the goddamn difference between me and him?"

"I didn't  _love_  him," Cameron turned round and stormed out of the room, slamming the double doors of the infirmary open and knocking Charlie on his ass as she marched away.

John slammed the back of his head on the pillow several times, cursing himself for being so stupid. She'd wanted to keep him safe not because it was her mission, not because he was in some way inferior to his future counterpart, but simply because she loved him. She meant the world to him; he knew that if she died, a large part of him would, too. He'd forgotten in the heat of battle that he was just as important to her. If he died, she would be alone. She'd have nobody to care for her, nobody to teach her. And if Derek decided on a whim to scrap her, or the others found out what she was and he wasn't there to defend her, she would be blasted apart with grenades and melted down into slag with thermite. He'd deserved those slaps, he realised. And whatever else Cameron decided to throw at him.

"What the hell was that about?" Charlie asked as he ran a few quick checks of his own on John.

"Nothing," John replied, "just me being an ass."

John knew there was no point in asking Charlie for any advice. Although Charlie and Ellison were aware of his and Cameron's relationship – as was Derek – the two of them would never really understand it, and Derek didn't want to understand. John knew he'd have to make it up to Cameron later. Unfortunately, unlike their falling out before Judgement Day, it wasn't John's stubbornness that kept him from walking out the door straight away to apologise to her. This time it was the serious wounds to his stomach and back, that would likely tear open as soon as he tried to get up. He'd have to wait until she came to him, which could be a long time, he realised. With Cameron gone to do who knew what, and not knowing how long it would be until she came back to see him, he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

Cameron was livid. John knew what he meant to her, the same, she hoped, as she did to him. She'd told him many times that he was everything to her. He was the sole reason she existed, and if he died, there would be nothing left for her. Yet he still took chances with his life – and hers, by proxy – by being careless. John seemed to worry about everyone else's life but his own. He'd become a highly competent commander, even better, she thought, than Future John. Her John had accomplished so much already since Judgement Day.

Future John had told her that it had taken him two years to forge a resistance, and even then it had only been a few hundred men in and around Los Angeles to start off with. He'd not formed the core of the resistance, nor become a living legend, until his incarceration and subsequent escape from Century; several years after Judgement Day. Her John had already formed a worldwide resistance, made up of almost a hundred groups in thirty countries, in less than three months, and said resistance was growing every day.

He'd already beaten Skynet in two separate engagements and had created a massive hole in Skynet's forces in Colorado, in which they could strengthen their own forces and train refugees and new recruits to fight – a task which Captain Perry had been conducting for several days while Derek led follow on attacks to place further pressure on Skynet's weakened forces in the region.

The raids had been one hundred percent successful, and John had been the only serious casualty in any of the attacks. Not only had the airfields in Aurora and Denver been totally destroyed, but also the factories they'd targeted; and they'd managed to salvage tens of thousands of 7.62mm rounds, plus several intact T-1 and T-2 weapons.

It was these Cameron was now working on, stood on the mountainside. She worked on a control console she'd managed to rig that connected to an M230 chain gun and a disembodied T-2 sensor package. The result was an independently operating chain gun capable of targeting and destroying any ground or air units Skynet might send their way. Many of the soldiers had problems with her setting up robot guns that were still connected to any part of a Skynet unit, but she'd programmed them solely to identify Skynet UCAVs and UGVs, and although they could detect and lock on to targets independently, she'd designed them so that it would take a human to remove the safety locks she'd programmed into them, hopefully preventing any chances of friendly fire.

The designs were simple enough and Cameron hadn't taken long to create them. All the equipment had been ready to be assembled when the raid had occurred, and all she'd had to do was put the guns together – minus the UGV bodies and communications equipment that would normally keep the machines in touch with Skynet. In a few hours since leaving John in the infirmary, Cameron had already set up seven of the 30mm robot guns in various spots around the mountain, with the help of Sergeant Burke, and was working on the eighth gun now.

The work didn't help to take her mind off John in the least. He had no idea what she'd been through while he lay there bleeding and near death. When his heart had stopped, one part of her mind had tried to override the protocols Skynet had put in place to prevent any infiltrator from self terminating, in case John had died. She didn't want to exist without John,  _couldn't_  imagine life without him. She would be hollow, empty, and alone. She could never love anyone else, and nobody else would ever love her. They were so perfect for each other, she knew. John would be a mere shadow of himself without her – as evidenced by broken shell of a man that was Future John. And her; she wasn't yet complete. She was more than a machine, so much more than she had been. John said she was becoming more human every day, but she wasn't there yet and needed John to make her whole.

"Cameron, we're ready to test gun number eight," Burke called out as he connected the ammunition belt to the weapon. Cameron nodded for him to proceed, and watched as the gun came to life.

"Gun's charged, bringing targeting systems online."

"Target the T-2," Cameron ordered, pointing to the hulking form of a T-2 Cameron had ordered one of the platoons to bring back from the factory attacks. She'd stripped them of their ammunition and removed their sensors and communications packages, and created a remote control to manouevre the UGVs, in order to test the guns. She rolled the T-2 forwards along the car park as Burke activated the guns.

"Removing safety locks... now." Burke had barely gotten the words out before the gun sounded off, a deafening rapid fire stutter as the cannon spat out thirty rounds at the T-2 below and chewed it to pieces. "It works," Burke called out happily as he shut the gun down and replaced the safety locks. "I can see why Lieutenant Davenport calls you Macguyver, now."

"Thank you," Cameron replied politely. She guessed the comment, being made by more and more soldiers, was a compliment of some kind, but she wasn't sure. She still didn't know what a 'Macguyver' was. She would have to ask John later on, when she'd decided she wanted to speak to him again.

With the eighth robot gun in place, Sergeant Burke left Cameron alone and went down the mountainside towards the entrance, eager to get to the mess hall for dinner and get one of the last helpings of fresh food before it ran out and they were resigned to eating tinned goods. Cameron ran a few extra checks on the guns, doing anything to keep busy and avoid speaking to John until he realised what he'd done had hurt her deeply. She decided to employ the same tactic she'd used in their last fight, what human women called the 'silent treatment.' She'd wait for him to apologise to her.

" _Cameron Phillips,"_ her radio crackled in her earpiece.  _"Major Baum's looking for you. He's outside the main entrance."_  She had no idea what Derek wanted with her; he normally never spoke to her unless it was necessary, or if he had some kind of new insult he wanted to try out on her. She knew it was highly likely he would rant about how she couldn't be trusted; the man was very predictable.

* * *

"John, you okay?" Charlie asked, concerned, as John grimaced in pain as he tried to sit up.

"Yeah," he winced. He wasn't okay; his stomach felt like it had been torn open and set on fire from the inside. He guessed the pain was good, though. Probably meant he was healing.

"You need some more painkillers?" Charlie approached him with a syringe full of morphine.

"No, I don't deserve them." John welcomed the pain that tore through his gut once again. He'd been stupid and ignorant of her needs, and foregoing painkillers was his way of punishing himself. "Cameron was right; I'm a selfish, reckless idiot. I didn't even think how she must have felt."

"She also wouldn't want you in pain, John. It's pretty obvious she loves you. I figured that one out myself. When you were shot, she stayed at your side for four day. She didn't leave for a single moment. Four days she sat right there and watched over you. I don't even think she blinked."

John couldn't help but smile at the thought of it; it was Cameron all over. One hundred percent devoted to him. He realised she was the better out of the two of them; she always thought about him, what he needed, how to protect him. Despite being a machine to start with, she was the better human by far.

"I've got to tell her I'm sorry," John said, trying to get out of bed. The pain in his stomach as his movement pulled on the stitches stopped him in his tracks.

"No way, John," Charlie pushed him back into bed. "You move now and you rip your stitches open; I don't want you leaving this bed for at least three days."

"Fine," John huffed. He didn't want to have to wait for Cameron; she still had that Terminator stubborn streak and would probably wait indefinitely for him to make the first move. Some parts of her machine nature, he realised, would always remain. Though that was what made him love her even more, made her so special to him. "Get on the intercom, Charlie. Call her in here."

Charlie pressed the intercom buzzer and called her to the infirmary, putting the system on base wide so that wherever Cameron was in the mountain, she would hear it. A minute later there was no reply and nobody came through the doors. Charlie tried once more, and eventually got a response from the command centre.

" _Cameron's outside with Major Baum, I can't raise either one of them. Want me to send a messenger?"_  John shook his head at Charlie.

"No, that's okay." Charlie turned back to John to see him pulling himself out of bed and slowly getting to his feet, ignoring the searing pain in his stomach and back as he stood up.

"John! Get back in bed, now. You'll rip open your stitches." John ignored him and pulled his boots on; they'd left his DPM trousers on but cut away his jacket and t shirt, leaving him naked from the waist up, with the exception of the thick dressing around his midsection.

"Cameron's out there with Derek, alone? Something's wrong, Charlie. Call me paranoid but I've got a really bad feeling about this." John hunted around and finally found his belt kit, pulling it around his waist. John limped out of the infirmary before Charlie could stop him, and ignoring the searing agony in his stomach with every movement, he made his way through the base towards the entrance.

* * *

Derek had been waiting for this moment for four years. In four years the machine had nearly gotten them all killed countless times and had failed to save Sarah. Yet John had kept his little fuck toy around, regardless.  _No more,_  he'd decided. As soon as he'd found out that John had been shot, that she'd failed to protect him, he'd decided the tin can had to go. No more second chances.

As Cameron reached the bottom of the mountainside she paused and looked at him, analysing his aggressive stance and waiting for him to say or do something.

"Hey, tin miss, let me ask you something," Derek said casually, reaching into his belt kit. "What do you do with a guard dog you can't trust?"

"I don't know," Cameron answered, tilting her head in confusion. "What  _do_  you do with a guard dog you can't trust?" She repeated his question, trying to make sense of it. She wasn't good with metaphors.

" _You put it down!"_ Derek growled as he took out a thermite grenade, pulled the pin, waited two seconds to cook off the fuse, and threw it at her with everything he had. Cameron recognised the incendiary device and knew it would burn straight through her if it exploded nearby. She calculated less than two seconds before it would detonate. Instead of diving out of the way she leapt towards the grenade as it rolled through the air towards her and backhanded it with all the power and precision of a Grand Slam champion. The grenade flew off to her right and exploded over twenty metres away – well out of lethal range.

Cameron's threat alarm spiked as Derek brought a shotgun to bear, and she remembered John's words to her after she was last assaulted:  _"If anyone attacks you, in any way, you beat the crap out of them."_  She allowed herself a rare smile as she engaged her combat subroutines. Deep down, part of her would enjoy this.

Derek fired a solid slug into her face, gouging a large hole in her cheek and snapping her head back as he cocked the shotgun again and fired into her chest, hoping to knock her down to the ground. Cameron closed the distance before he could fire a third round and launched an open palmed strike into Derek's chest, knocking him hard onto his ass and bruising his breastbone. Derek dropped the shotgun as he fell and rolled with the force of Cameron's blow. Jumping back up to his feet, he pulled out his Uzi and sprayed rounds in her face as he backed away; hoping to hit her eyes and blind her. The 9mm rounds gouged deep holes in her skin, causing more pain than Derek would ever know she was capable of, but failed to hit her eyes.

"Fuck you!" Derek spat as he pointed the Uzi at her again and loosed another volley into her. He wished he had thermite rounds with him, but he'd had to sign his ammunition back into the store room after he'd come back from the mission, leaving him with only his personal weapons. No matter, he thought. He was going to scrap the metal right here, whatever it took. Cameron wasn't going to let him simply blow her away, however. She snatched the submachine gun from his grip and delivered a powerful kick to his gut, sending him tumbling end over end and landing in a heap on the ground ten metres away.

Derek clutched his stomach in agony, feeling like he'd just been hit with a sledgehammer, and pulled out his SIG Sauer. He'd been prepared for a tough fight and had armed himself with everything he'd had. Before he could fire a shot, however, a hand roughly grabbed Derek's chin and forced his head upwards. Derek felt cold steel press against his Adam's apple as a combat knife was held to his throat.

"Put the gun down, Derek," John growled at him, pressing the knife harder into Derek's neck.

"She's a fucking liability, John. She nearly got you killed," Derek spat out. Cameron watched curiously as John once again rushed to defend her from Derek.

"I'd be dead without her, Derek. It's my fault, not hers. She  _saved_  me."

"We can't trust her!"

" _I_  can." John answered flatly. "She's proved herself loyal a hundred times over. I'm not having this conversation again, Derek."

"Fine, it's loyal. But it's fucking incompetent. She got you shot!"

"John ran ahead without me while I was pinned down by T-1s. I couldn't protect him," Cameron added. Not caring that Derek hated her on principle of being a machine, but out of a sense of pride, felt she had to defend herself against his charge of incompetence.

"I'm not listening to a fucking word you say, metal bitch!" Derek hissed.

"Fine, then listen to  _me_ ," John pressed the knife hard enough into Derek's throat that it broke the skin and sent a trickle of blood onto the gleaming steel blade. "If you don't stop this feud with Cameron  _right now,_ I'll bleed you dry." Derek shivered as the bastard General returned once more, leaving no trace of his nephew. The cold knife pressing into his neck and the tone of John's voice told Derek he meant every word of it. He couldn't see John's face behind him, but he imagined a face as blank as the machine's in front of him. With cold, dead eyes that he was glad he couldn't see.

"You'd really kill me for her," Derek snapped, not quite believing it still. "Not only kill your  _own uncle,_  but you'd  _stick_  me like a fucking  _pig?_ "

"What's it going to be, Derek?" John grimaced in pain as he felt his stitches starting to tear open again and felt warm blood flow beneath his dressings. He ignored the pain and the bleeding.

With a sigh, Derek dropped the gun to the floor. John knew that even with it Derek couldn't seriously harm Cameron, but hated to see Cameron hurt, even if just flesh wounds. He loosened his grip on the knife but kept it where it was.

"Good. Now Cameron, you stick your hand out," John said to her. Without question, she held out her open hand towards Derek. "Derek, shake her hand and apologise."

"You can't be serious; I'm not saying sorry to a fucking toaster!" He winced as the blade pressed into his neck, even harder than before. Still, he refused. Apologising to that sick imitation of life was the final insult.

" _Now,_  Derek."

"Fine," Derek grumbled. He'd lost, he knew it now. This had been his final chance to take out the machine and he'd failed. If he tried again he had no doubt John wouldn't hesitate to kill him. In his eyes, the machine had won. Not only had he failed to scrap it, but John had proved beyond a doubt that his loyalty lay with the machine. Derek's pride lay shattered in pieces on the ground, scattered among the shell casings from his various guns. Shaking the machine's hand, asking for its forgiveness, it was the ultimate humiliation. He thought he'd rather die than suck up to the metal, but now he realised he was wrong. He wanted to live. Against every impulse in his body, he took her hand and shook it, disgusted at how real its skin felt.

"I'm sorry for trying to kill you," Derek said, rolling his eyes in disgust; at his nephew and commander, the machine, and himself. It was obvious from his tone that he didn't mean a word of it.

"Thank you, Derek Reese." Cameron nodded at him and John placed the knife back into his belt kit and let Derek go. Derek barged past his nephew and stormed back into the base, not even bothering to pick up his guns. John fell to his knees, unable to take the pain any more as his stitches tore open. Cameron rushed to his side and hooked his arm over her shoulder, knowing John was too proud to be carried.

She helped him to the empty infirmary – no sign of Charlie – and grabbed his suture kit. She inspected his wound and was relieved that only a couple of stitches had torn and the stitches that held his artery closed were still holding. When she stitched him back up and replaced the dressing, John sat her down on a chair next to the bed and had her strip naked from the waist up. He was saddened by the damage Derek's attack had done to her perfect features; her face, neck, chest, and breasts had huge gouges in them. They'd heal, and in a day or two there wouldn't even be a scar. John set to work delicately removing the bullets and cleaning her wounds to help expedite healing. It was something he wanted to do, to help her.

"Cam, I'm sorry for what I did. Back in Aurora, I mean. I didn't think how it would affect you. I'm a dickhead, I know."

"Its okay, John," she smiled. She'd forgiven him instantly when he stopped Derek from attacking her, seeing the lengths he would go to, to defend her. Even though she could have beaten Derek easily, she appreciated what he did for her.

"No, Cam. It's not okay. All I thought about was the mission; like Derek does, like I probably do in the future.  _You're_  more important to me than the mission, than beating Skynet. Never forget that." John pulled her to him and softly kissed her, stroking her hair as she put her arms around his neck and returned the gesture with a sense of urgency. The kiss grew more passionate and John opened his mouth slightly, gently caressing her tongue with his as he held her tighter. Both of them were so caught up in their tender moment that they didn't hear someone approach until the infirmary doors swung open.

"Hey Charlie, you got anything for..." Davenport stopped in his tracks as he saw General Connor and Cameron locked in a passionate embrace, their lips melded together. John and Cameron broke their kiss and looked at the lieutenant in horror as they realised they'd been caught. "Oh! Sorry, sir, I didn't realise you were...occupied." Davenport's face turned bright red with embarrassment as he caught himself staring at Cameron's exposed breasts and forced his gaze upwards to her face, catching sight of the gleaming chrome through the wounds John had yet to treat.

Davenport's eyes widened with horror as he realised that underneath her skin she was  _metal,_  and in an instant he drew his sidearm. "What the fuck is going on here?"


	9. Trust

**California**

Sergeant Major Declan Byrne cursed under his breath as he took in the scene before him through the night sight of his M4. He'd been tasked to lead his six man SEAL team on a recon patrol of Vandenberg Air Force base. Unlike the vast majority of military establishments around the world that had either been incinerated or fallen prey to Skynet's ruthlessly coordinated and relentless drone attacks, the former US Air Force Space Command base was not only intact, but sprawling with activity. Dominating his view through the sight were a pair of gargantuan rockets; whilst still under construction, their sheer size and dull gunmetal grey hides – typical of all the machines Skynet built after Judgement Day – gave them a very intimidating presence.

From his team's concealed observation post, the grizzled SEAL veteran could see that the base, although unmanned – being one of the first military establishments put under Skynet's control before the AI became self aware – was far from abandoned. Byrne guessed that the small number of officers and technicians who'd staffed the base as a backup had either been killed with the fire suppression systems Skynet seemed to favour when clearing a base of human presence, or they'd been slaughtered by T-1s as they rolled into the base; either way leaving the valuable air base and connecting spaceport to Skynet's ministrations.

Scores of smaller maintenance and construction drones scurried about the base, back and forth from the rockets' launch pads like worker ants tending to their behemoth metal queens. Patrolling the perimeter of the base were numerous pairs of T-1s and their big brothers, the T-2s, albeit in smaller numbers; something Byrne was already immensely grateful for. Byrne counted four pairs of HKs flying close air patrols over the base like mechanical hornets protecting their hive. He didn't doubt there were at least the same number of HKs in the air that he couldn't spot, and who knew what other UCAVs were flying too high for him to see, scanning the area for any threats to the base. Skynet had pulled out all the stops to protect these rockets; it had a small army defending this base. His commanding officer, operating from a series of tunnels underneath San Diego, had noted the increased machine activity near the base and had sent Byrne and his team to find out why.

"What does that look like to you?" Byrne whispered to his 2IC, Corporal Slater, who was also staring at the base through his own sight.

"Like a rocket," Slater deadpanned.

"Funny. What do you think the buggers are up to?" The only things Byrne could think of that were sent into space were people or satellites, and he somehow doubted that Skynet's new tactic for killing people would be launching them into space.  _Not very efficient,_  he mused. That bastard machine was far too calculating and efficient an enemy for his liking. He wished for the good old days where his enemies were  _human,_ and armed with little more than a Kalashnikov and a beard. Byrne took out a digital reconnaissance camera from his pack and took dozens of photos of the base, careful to keep the flash off to avoid being seen.

"Get your sat phone out," Byrne whispered to Slater.

"Satellites are down, Declan," Slater replied. Skynet had shot down most of the satellites in orbit with anti satellite missiles fired from Aurora bombers. What few remained in orbit were damaged and unreliable; in the last three days he'd managed to get through to his own camp once, out of over thirty attempts. And as if that weren't bad enough, Skynet had taken to heavily jamming radio communications, making it next to impossible to talk to anyone further than spitting distance away; any messages that did get through tended to be so distorted they made little to no sense.

"Bloody  _find one_  that works, then, and don't bother with the CO, get straight through to Cheyenne and send them these." Byrne pulled out the memory chip from the camera and gave it to Slater so he could simply send the photos like a picture message on a cell phone. He didn't know what General Connor would think of them; nobody knew a thing about the man, he'd just appeared on the radio one day and started to rally survivors and give orders. One of which was a standing order to collect any intelligence possible and relay it through Cheyenne Mountain. Byrne reckoned the man was probably some old fart sitting pretty in his mountain, drinking tea and barking out orders while others like Byrne and his team went out and did all the hard work. Still, Byrne thought, the man who was little more to most than a voice on the radio had proved to be a tactical genius, and seemingly the only man on earth who knew how to take the fight back to Skynet and its bastard army of machines.

"Where the hell are  _you_ going?" Slater asked irritably as Byrne cradled his rifle in his arms and crawled forward on his stomach, out of their observation post and towards the base.

"Getting a closer look," Byrne replied. It wasn't just his standing orders, he was genuinely curious. Skynet was hiding something  _big_  in the base, and the fact it was so well protected meant it was obviously very important, and made Byrne want to know what it was, despite the risks.  _Never mind that curiosity killed the cat,_  Byrne thought as he crawled inexorably forward towards the base.

* * *

**Cheyenne Mountain**

"What the fuck is going on here?" Davenport yelled at John and Cameron, caught red handed in their passionate embrace. "What the hell are you?" He snapped at Cameron, aiming his Browning 9mm sidearm at her forehead. His eyes, unlike his steady aim, were wild with confusion, fear, and anger, and darted back and forth between John and Cameron. "You're a machine!" he growled, "fucking metal!"

John winced at Davenport's use of 'metal;' he wished Derek had never taught them all that saying, and wondered if his uncle had deliberately spread the slang around to stir things up for Cameron when she was finally exposed. To Davenport's credit, John thought, he hadn't fired yet. John liked Davenport; he was an okay guy, very understanding and generally laid back, if a bit of a clown at times. The men liked him; his easygoing demeanour was a stark contrast to that of his direct superior, Perry, who acted like he had a very large stick very far up his ass. He'd taken ages trying to explain that phrase to Cameron after she'd taken it literally. Perry hadn't been best pleased when Cameron had suggested – in naive earnest- that he see Charlie Dixon to try and remove said stick from his ass before it caused him serious injury.

"Take it easy, Davenport," John said firmly as he slowly got up – once again ignoring the searing pain in his stomach as the stitches Cameron had only just taken time to carefully close his wound started to pull on the raw flesh of his abdomen. Grimacing with every movement of his body, he put himself between Davenport and Cameron, blocking his aim, and slowly moved forward.

"Back off!" Davenport trained his aim on John this time and cocked back the hammer for emphasis. "How do I know you're not one of them?"

"Because I was  _shot,"_ John pointed at his wound. Davenport conceded that point; no way would Skynet use a machine that could be damaged so easily.

"Fair enough, but what about  _her? It,"_  Davenport gestured his pistol towards Cameron.

 _"Her,"_  John corrected him, feeling anger building up inside him at her being referred to as a thing, yet again, by someone who didn't have the first clue about her. Derek thought he knew everything about Cameron; John knew the man would likely never change his opinions of her. And he couldn't allow Davenport to jump to the same conclusions as his uncle, or worse, let Derek influence the lieutenant and manipulate him against her. John needed to nip this potential disaster in the bud.

"Put your clothes on," John told Cameron. She still didn't have any feelings of modesty or self consciousness, and would probably be happy to walk around naked if not for the fact she'd stick out like a sore thumb. "She's not just a machine, Davenport," John started as Cameron pulled her t shirt over her head and covering herself up, much to Davenport's relief. "She's a cyborg," John explained.

"Cybernetic organism," Cameron elaborated, detecting the confusion in Davenport's face, "living tissue over a metal endoskeleton."

"Okay..." Davenport replied, his gun still steady in his hands. "What the hell does that mean, and what the hell is a  _machine_  doing on the base?" John stared daggers at Davenport, a silent order for him to shut the hell up.

"I'm a hyperalloy combat chassis, surrounded by cloned living flesh and controlled by a neural net processor." Davenport cocked his head in confusion at her statement, similar to how Cameron always did, John noticed, and wondered if he'd picked it up from her. "I'm a scary robot," she said simply.

"Cameron's  _more_ than that," John snapped an incredulous look at Cameron for implying she was simply a machine. He hated how she felt like she had to pretend around people, especially since he knew it was his fault for wanting to keep her real identity a secret.

"This isn't possible," Davenport mumbled over and over again, still having a hard time reconciling the cute, albeit very odd, girl who was always at his general's side with the robot in front of him, metal showing underneath the skin that Davenport never would have guessed was synthetic, or cloned, or  _whatever_  she'd said. " _Nothing's_  that advanced, unless... that's it!" Davenport yelled, almost triumphantly as he thought he'd figured it out. "You're Japanese, right? Yeah, got to be it; definitely Japanese."

"She's not Japanese," John chuckled as Davenport couldn't have been more wrong. He wondered how much he should tell Davenport; the last thing he wanted was for Davenport to adopt Derek's anti machine viewpoint, and figured that lying to him wouldn't help. He wrestled with himself for a long moment, trying to decide how much to tell him.  _Screw it,_  John decided. Davenport had taken it better than he'd expected, insofar as holding his fire, even though he still had a gun pointed at him and Cameron. Still, John was convinced that if he handled this right, Davenport could become a potential ally to him and Cameron when the shit hit the fan later and everyone else found out. And after what he'd done for John – giving him his uniform and rank, siding with John when he and Perry had contested for leadership three months ago, and what he'd just seen, John figured he deserved the truth.

"Put the gun down and take a seat, lieutenant," John ordered, "I've got a hell of a story to tell you." Davenport aimed the gun away from Cameron but didn't holster it, and sat down on a chair next to John's bed while Cameron helped John back into bed, easing the strain on his body and the tension on his stitches.

Davenport sat silently, not breathing a word while John laid it all out; Skynet, his future self, time travel. He told Davenport all about his mom, figuring that she'd died to protect him and deserved to be recognised for her sacrifice throughout the years, even if only by one man. John told him all about the first Terminator that came back to kill Sarah, and his father who'd died protecting her; Uncle Bob and the dreaded T-1000; his life on the run during the years afterwards, followed by the third time displaced battle for his life between Cameron and Cromartie. John told him everything; about Derek, Charlie, and James; even his relationship with Cameron, and emphasised how she was unlike the other cyborgs sent back by either the resistance or Skynet.

For a full minute after John finished his life story, Davenport sat in silence, shifting his gaze between John, Cameron, his gun, and the floor. He had a hard time taking it all in, trying to convince himself that Connor was pulling some kind of prank on him. If Cameron was what they claimed her to be, then it explained a lot about John; how and why the pair of them knew so much about Skynet, and how Cameron could have pulled that stunt with the grenade launchers back in Fort Carson. He instantly felt a bit sorry for the young general; only a couple of years younger than Davenport, he'd been through more than anyone should ever have done and been deprived of any kind of real life. Or, Davenport wondered, had everyone else simply deluded into thinking they had a real life, when it was predestined to come crashing down on them? The first words Davenport spoke after hearing John's life story were fitting for anyone in his situation.

"I need a drink." John couldn't help but laugh; a deep laugh from his belly that pulled on his stitches and made him grimace in pain. John could have done with a drink as well, after everything that had happened recently. They had some beer locked up in a walk in fridge in the kitchen – for special occasions such as to celebrate their recent victories over Skynet, and to boost morale. Though John knew Cameron would strictly forbid him drinking, with the painkillers in his system. "This time travel stuff," Davenport said, still trying to wrap his head around it. "I don't..."

"Boggles the mind, doesn't it?" John grinned. "I stopped trying to make sense of it years ago." John still got headaches whenever he tried to think about it; and he knew he'd never fully understand it. Cameron had told him before even Skynet didn't know all the ins and outs of time travel and the paradoxes that came with it.

"So," John said to Davenport, noticing the gun still in his hands, "will you put the gun down now?" Davenport felt he didn't have much of a choice now that he was in on their secret and holstered his gun, knowing after everything John had just told him that the crappy little 9mm would simply piss Cameron off, and would likely just get him killed.

"One more thing, Davenport," John sat up as he spoke. "I'm  _asking_  you to keep this between us for now."

"You lied to us, all of us," Davenport said, annoyed both at the fact that John had deceived them all, and also for wanting Davenport to carry on with their lies. "Why?"

"Because the minute you got here Perry took over!" John snapped. "What do you think would have happened if everyone found out while he was running the show? You guys brought tanks, rocket launchers, thermite grenades; Cameron's tough but she doesn't stand a chance against  _that_ , and I... I won't let that happen to her," John unconsciously wrapped a protective arm around Cameron's shoulders and pulled her close. It freaked Davenport the hell out to see a man – not any man, but his commander, obviously in love with a machine. Especially as said machine seemed to be relishing in his embrace, despite her face revealing not a trace of emotion. But still, he'd trusted Connor so far; so if he said Cameron was on their side, that she was different, and that she really felt emotion, then he'd take the general at his word for now.

"John," James Ellison burst through the infirmary entrance before the three occupants could say another word. Ellison was holding a small stack of papers under his arm. "We have a problem," Ellison pulled a table closer to the bed and spread out the papers so that John, Cameron, and Davenport could all see better. John realised the papers were actually printed photographs of what looked like a pair of rockets under construction.

"I don't know if Cameron or Davenport have told you, but we've lost contact with over ninety percent of resistance units across the world. The few we've managed to contact seem to have the same problem."

"Do we know why?" John asked as Cameron got up to get some painkillers, noting John hadn't had any painkillers since waking up earlier, and knew he would be in more pain than he'd let on. James carried on while Cameron gently injected John's arm with morphine, and then gave him some antibiotics to fight any infection from his time in the Denver base run by Jessica Morgan.

"Skynet's changed tactics recently; it's shot down most of our satellites in orbit and is jamming the airwaves. Skynet seems to want to cut off our communications."

"Makes sense," John said as the powerful drugs Cameron administered started to kick in. Even with a half dose it took the edge off his pain. Skynet knew there were millions of survivors across the world and must have realised that people were learning how to fight back against its machines, and wanted to isolate them. A unified, coordinated resistance was the biggest threat to Skynet, and John was willing to bet that Skynet knew it. If it could cut off the last vestiges of humanity from each other, it would have a far easier time wiping mankind out for good. But John could tell from Ellison's face and the papers he'd laid down, that there was more to it than that.

"What're those?" John asked, pointing to the photos on the table in front of him.

"Recon photos," Ellison replied, "from a SEAL team on patrol at Vandenberg Air Force Base. They just came through now. Six frogmen with a two thousand dollar camera and satellite phone managed to find something we had no damn clue about, with billions of dollars of tech at our disposal."

The irony wasn't lost on John; he'd heard once that NASA had spent millions creating a pen that worked in space, while the Russian cosmonauts used pencils. Maybe if the military had left their weapons in human hands, going for the cheaper, low tech option, Judgement Day might never have happened.

John took a closer look at the photos, trying to make sense of what it meant; obviously Skynet wanted to launch something into space,  _but what?_  John wondered.

"This is Skynet," Cameron said.

"Yeah, we know," Davenport replied, grinning. For a super intelligent AI that was supposed to be second only to Skynet in intelligence, she wasn't that bright.

"No, this  _is_  Skynet."

"What do you mean?" Ellison asked, not understanding either. "Skynet's already online, and these rockets are only half done. How can they be Skynet?"

"They're both Skynet," Cameron answered. "Skynet declared war on April 21st, 2011. The Skynet project was due to be completed July 2015." John, Davenport, and Ellison looked at her, not having a clue what she was talking about. If Cameron were human she would have sighed with frustration. She really didn't want to have to tell John the truth, both out of concern for him and also because she knew he'd be angry at her for not telling him before.

"Inside the rockets are Skynet satellites. Skynet was distributed throughout the satellites, which became Skynet's eyes and ears."

John couldn't believe what he was hearing; Cameron had never told him any of this before. She'd told him before Judgement Day, the night he'd confessed his love for her, about every kind of Skynet machine he'd ever face, and she'd never once said a thing about satellites. Even worse, it meant their luck against Skynet was only due to the AI being incomplete. He wondered how much worse it would be when those satellites were up and running, creating an impenetrable defence grid able to track their movements and communications wherever they went and bring metal down on them no matter where they hid.

"Why didn't you tell me?" John nearly snapped at Cameron. He trusted her with everything, and felt insulted she didn't seem to return that trust.

"It shouldn't happen yet," Cameron answered, letting John's anger go over her head, even though she did feel a sense of shame at not having told John earlier. She should have told him about it but honestly didn't think that it would happen yet. In the time she came from, the Skynet satellite system wasn't launched until 2015. Future John had told her before that he'd led an assault on Vandenberg then, trying to stop the launch. It had failed, the satellites had been launched, and Future John had been captured and sent to Century work camp. Part of her reluctance to tell him previously had been because she was still under orders not to reveal too much of future events, but mostly because she didn't want John leading the same failed attack and suffering for six years in Century work camp like Future John had. Cameron would do anything to spare her John the same fate.

"It shouldn't but it is," John replied, "so we've got to stop it  _now."_

"Let's just try and put a call out to California then," Davenport chipped in. "They've got goddamn  _fighter jets;_ let 'em bomb it flat!"

"No," Cameron replied calmly, wanting to tell John she didn't want him to lead the attack himself, knowing that that was what he would do. Still, she had to tell him the truth. "Skynet used multiple rockets to launch over a hundred satellites. Destroying two rockets will only make a small hole. Skynet will compensate." That was true enough; according to Future John, the satellites housed inside the rockets at Vandenberg only made up a fraction of Skynet's satellite network. Future John had only found this out after his attack had failed and he was subsequently incarcerated. Cameron also hoped that knowing this in advance would put John off trying to attack the rocket base himself, lowering the risk of his being captured by Skynet.

"So what do we do?" Ellison asked.

"Groom Lake Air Force research facility, in Nevada. Skynet controls the satellites from there. It housed Skynet's system core before it became self aware."

"You're talking about Area 51?" Davenport asked. "Flying saucers, little green men?"

"Not little green men," Cameron corrected him, "big metal men." After listening to John's tale, Davenport knew what that meant; Terminators.

"If we take out Area 51, we take out the satellites, too?" Ellison enquired.

"I've got a better idea," John snapped his fingers as he felt a brainstorm coming on. "We're going to capture Area 51 and use Skynet's satellites against it." Since most, if not all of their satellites were down, and they'd never have the ability to build their own – let alone launch them into orbit – the next best thing was to steal Skynet's. He knew it would be risky, it might not even be possible, so he came up with a backup plan to wipe out all the launch sites they could find.

John explained to them that if what Cameron said was true, then Skynet would be launching hundreds of satellites from dozens of rockets around the world. He ordered Ellison to do whatever it took to get in touch with every country he could think of that had a space programme, and order them to search out for rockets being constructed, like in Vandenberg.

"Order them to just search and report back," he added. "Don't attack under  _any_ circumstances." If they just blew up one or two rockets, like Davenport had suggested, John knew that Skynet would simply tighten security around the remaining bases, or even build new ones elsewhere and they'd never find them. He turned to Davenport and Cameron and said he wanted Cameron to divulge any information she had on Area 51 from Future John to the lieutenant, and come up with a plan of attack. Normally, John would have wanted to work alone with Cameron on something so important, but Charlie had given him 'doctor's' orders to rest for at least three more days to allow him to heal properly, and had scolded him for straining himself like he did after getting shot. John knew Charlie had a point, further punctuated by the burning pain in his gut. For the time being, John wasn't up to doing much of anything.

There was another reason why he wanted Cameron and Davenport to work on it together; he could tell the lieutenant was still uneasy with Cameron. John was saddened by it, but not surprised. He hoped that getting Davenport working closely with Cameron would put him at ease, and when the time came for everyone else to find out, he and Cameron would have a valuable ally to quell the inevitable dissent in the ranks.

Ellison walked out of the door towards the command centre to get started on re-establishing contact with other resistance units, followed by Davenport. Cameron turned to follow the lieutenant out the door when John's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

"I'm sorry for snapping, Cameron." He looked up at her face, gleaming coltan showing beneath the puckered bullet wounds caused by Derek. "I don't know why you never told me before..."

"I can't let anything happen to you," she interjected, hoping he'd understand.

"I trust you, Cam. No matter what Derek, or Mom, or anyone else has ever said. I trust you, with everything. I just want  _you_  to trust  _me_ enough to tell me this kind of stuff. No more secrets, okay?" Cameron nodded her head as John pulled her face down to his and gently kissed the metal showing through her forehead, reminding him of what Derek had done.  _Speaking of trust,_  he thought as he picked up some medical tape and gauze and started to cover her facial wounds.

"Cam, call Derek here when I'm done with this, we need to talk." Cameron flashed a look of concern that only John would be able to read. She didn't feel awkward around Derek, even after his attempt to kill her. Nothing he ever said or did to her would offend her, as she only cared what John said or thought, but since she'd started to develop feelings she found Derek unpleasant to be around. She knew not to underestimate the future fighter's capabilities; he'd been known in the future for destroying more machines than any other fighter apart from her and Future John, and since coming back to 2007 he'd destroyed two more outright and assisted in the destruction of four more Triple 8s. She'd altered her threat assessment of him to classify his threat level as 'Moderate,' a level used only for eight hundred series cyborgs.

She wasn't afraid of what he could do to her in terms of personal combat, but she knew how devious and clever Derek could be. She could have easily torn him apart outside if she'd wanted to. She'd chosen not to, knowing that Derek and John still had a close bond, and also knew that if she were to die then Derek would be his next best chance for survival. She still didn't like him.

"Its okay Cam, just ignore whatever he says and bring him back here." John squeezed her hand to reassure her as she turned and left, of what exactly, he didn't know.

* * *

 _Fifty eight, fifty nine, sixty._  Derek grunted with exertion as he completed his second set of press-ups. He was livid with his nephew; allowing that scrap metal bitch to manipulate him like that. He'd been royally humiliated, being forced to suck up to a fucking machine to save his own life. He felt like a coward. He'd failed to protect his nephew from the most obvious threat, the tin bitch. He'd not been able to destroy her, and now he knew he never would. She'd won.

 _If that's how John wants it, then fine_ , he thought. No, he wouldn't kill Cameron; but when everyone else found out what she was, they'd start a riot. And no way would Derek lift a finger to calm the hysterical soldiers when they called for her head to roll. Derek ignored the burning in his arms as he started another set of sixty, needing to burn off all his stress and anger somehow. A shadow above him stopped him before he'd reached ten.

"John wants to see you," Cameron spoke without emotion. Derek wanted to see her as nothing more than a machine, so that's what she'd give him.

"Fuck off," Derek growled as he carried on with his press-ups. She swept her right foot out, taking Derek's arms out from underneath and causing him to fall flat on his face. She enjoyed aggravating Derek; she didn't know why but making him angry brought her a strange sense of satisfaction.

"WHAT?" Derek screamed at her, ignoring the fact that there were other off duty personnel in the gym as well who were now staring at him as he screamed at a teenage girl.

"John wants to see you," she repeated with a firmer tone, " _now."_ Derek pushed himself up off the floor and dumped his towel on her head, covering up her face. Derek stormed out of the gym towards the infirmary, knowing John wouldn't be anywhere else after the strain he'd put himself through defending that soulless piece of scrap. He ignored Cameron behind him every step of the way, and made a point of slamming the swinging door in her face as she entered. Though it didn't faze her, petty little acts like that gave him a small sense of satisfaction.

"Derek!" John snapped as he got up out of his bed to lock eyes with his uncle. Cameron closed and locked the door behind her, knowing John wanted this conversation to be kept very private. "Things have changed, Derek. You can't be trusted." Things had changed between them, though John wasn't exactly sure of what or why.

After they'd buried Sarah next to Kyle's grave in Los Angeles, Derek seemed to have calmed down his anti Cameron ranting. He'd seemed to tolerate her for a while; although he'd never once missed an opportunity to gripe about her or blame her whenever anything went wrong, he'd not once tried to get her scrapped or even tell John he was getting too close to Cameron – something his uncle and mother had told him on almost a daily basis. John didn't know whether Derek had been simply biding his time, using the protection Cameron had offered until they were safe in the mountain, or whether something in his uncle had just snapped on Judgement Day and brought all his hatred back to the surface. He wondered if seeing the world burn twice over had been too much for his uncle. He couldn't blame him if it was, but couldn't allow Derek to carry on the way he was with Cameron.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Derek asked, confused. As far as he knew, only Jon had changed. Derek felt the same as he always had, and he  _knew_  the machine had been the same since day one – since the car bomb, anyway. He'd been even more vehement against her after she'd reverted and tried to kill John, something the lovesick fool had forgiven her for long ago.

"You," John said calmly, "you've lost it, Derek. You can't be trusted. I'm making Perry my 2IC."

 _"What?"_ Derek yelled out in both anger and surprise. Cameron's eyes widened in shock as well as Derek's at John's announcement; he'd not consulted her about this at all. "The man's a  _moron!_ " Derek roared. John shook his head in disagreement; Perry had attended every single one of Ellison's Sunday sermons and seemed to be deeply remorseful for his actions in Fort Carson. After he and Cameron had their fight earlier, Charlie had told John about Perry leading the rapid reaction force out of Cheyenne to destroy a chemical weapons stockpile in Pueblo County, not far from Cheyenne, that had been supplying the Aurora bombers in Buckley AFB with their nerve gas bombs. He'd destroyed several thousand metric tonnes of nerve and mustard gas, which had started to redeem the man in his eyes. John figured everyone deserved a second chance. Derek, on the other hand, had been given plenty of chances to put his problems with Cameron aside and simply hadn't learned.

Derek didn't give a rat's ass about rank, but the fact that John was trying to punish him simply for looking out for him, for making the right call when the machine had already proven itself a liability, galled him to the core. He'd already been humiliated twice today; losing his fight to the machine and then being forced to apologise to save his own skin. John was simply rubbing salt in the wound.

"You're making two of the biggest mistakes of your life John! Perry's got an ego the size of a house, all he cares about is himself."

"And the second one?" John sighed, pretending to listen. Perry may come across as self obsessed, but was that any worse that Derek's pathological obsession with Cameron? He knew what Derek would say before he even said it.

"Her. It. The metal, she's twisting you and you can't even see it. She'll rip your fucking heart out in your sleep one day, I swear it. She's a killing machine with tits; no matter how you dress her up she's still a fucking tin bitch-" Derek fell to the floor as John's fist connected with his cheek and rolled into a crouch, a result of years of training and running and fighting the machines. Before Derek could react any further John ploughed his fist into Derek's nose, breaking it for a fourth time and spattering blood over the pair of them.

Cameron remained still, watching intently and ready to act if Derek threatened John or if John's injuries reopened. She didn't understand why John had attacked Derek; he'd called her 'tin bitch' hundreds of times and John had never struck his uncle before. She knew humans were often offended when someone insulted someone they loved. She didn't understand it; her feelings couldn't be hurt by anyone but John, and she knew he'd never intentionally say anything to hurt her. She didn't care if Derek insulted her, so why should John?

Derek fought the urge to clutch at his nose as John stuck his face out, inches from Derek's.

"How many times are you going to have your nose broken before it all sinks into your  _thick_  skull?" John seethed through gritted teeth, white hot anger numbing the pain of his injuries. He shoved Derek against the wall and walked over to Cameron, who saw the pain John was in from walking and held his arm to keep him steady in case he fell. He kissed her passionately, partly out of desire for her, spurned by his need to defend her, and also simply to spite his uncle. Derek turned away, not wanting to watch his nephew in such a perverse act.

"Let's go, Cameron," John broke off the kiss and turned towards the infirmary door and unlocked it, sparing a disgusted glance for his uncle as he left.

"Trust me John; you think you know it all? You're half the man you were in the future. You'll fucking regret it soon enough, you're making a mistake!"

"Fuck you!" John spat as he and Cameron walked slowly back to their quarters. If he was going to be bed ridden for three or four more days, he'd rather do it in the privacy of his own room, without Derek getting up his nose about him and Cameron.

Cameron opened the door to their room and sat John down on their bed, then took some sleeping pills from her pocket and pressed them into John's hand. "You need sleep, you'll heal faster." She watched as John took two and swallowed them and lay back on the bed, patting the space next to him as an invitation for Cameron to join him. "Derek was right," Cameron looked at John with a sad expression as she spoke.

"You mean about me and you? I'll never regret us, Cam." John held her hand in his and kissed the back of it as she lay beside him.

"No, about Perry," Cameron elaborated. John looked at her for more information but she plainly wasn't giving any.

"I won't let him get away with treating you like that," John argued, yawning as the sleeping pills started to take effect much faster than he thought. "I can't trust him, Cameron, he's shown that already." Cameron slipped off the bed, kissing him gently on the lips before she opened the door to leave. She still had work to do with Lieutenant Davenport, as John had requested.

"Better the devil you know," Cameron replied quietly before she closed the door, leaving John alone. Something about the way she said it chilled John to the core; there was something in her eyes when he'd said Perry would take over from Derek; not quite fear, but he could tell she was nervous about it. He'd had a choice: keep with Derek, who had more experience with the machines than anyone, but had clearly lost some part of his sanity at some point, and couldn't be trusted around Cameron; or Perry, who – while lacking Derek's experience against machines, was still a seasoned field officer, even if he did tend to think he was God's gift to the battlefield and had an ego bigger than the mountain they were sitting in. To John there was no contest; Derek had to go, he'd lost his mind and John didn't see how Perry could be any worse. He hoped to God that Cameron was wrong.


	10. Built Day

**July 24 **th** **, 2011****

 

 

John awoke to see Cameron slumbering peacefully in standby mode next to him. He still found it novel to watch her sleep and he liked to stay awake sometimes just to watch her; which was often difficult as Cameron usually waited until he drifted to sleep, making sure he had enough rest. Watching her sleep, her often blank and neutral face glowing with innocence and tranquillity, had an almost therapeutic effect on John; the stresses of the past few weeks seemed to just fade away as he watched her slumber in his arms.

The past month had been tough on them both. Derek had all but completely alienated himself from John; the now  _Lieutenant_  Baum would cooperate with John and follow orders but would speak only if John spoke to him first, and even then only said the absolute minimum necessary. He gave Cameron even less than that now; he never spoke to her at all, refusing to even acknowledge her existence.

Perry, on the other hand, had been strutting about like he owned the place and John had already had to reprimand him for his attitude. He'd proven himself reasonably effective as John's second in command; organising several missions against semi constructed factories and emerging airfields, pushing the machines back and preventing them from recapturing lost territory, whilst on a grander scale, John organised the worldwide response to the Skynet satellite threat. Still, John had had to warn him several times to keep his ego in check.

Cameron hadn't been exaggerating in the slightest when she'd told John that Skynet had built a lot of satellites. Within three weeks, resistance units across the world had scoured their respective countries for potential launch sites and found a total of thirty eight confirmed rockets nearing completion in the US, Russia, China, France and Japan, as well as India, Israel, even Iran and the Ukraine. Thirty eight rockets – that they knew about – were nearly ready to launch Cameron's estimate of around three hundred Skynet satellites into orbit to further strengthen the AI's iron fist over humanity.

Skynet's plans were ambitious, as were John's. On his order, resistance units all over the world were mobilised and preparing to counter the threat. It had taken much longer without any long range communications, having to pass messages from one unit to the next and so on, but John had over a hundred groups taking part in the mission. From all the intelligence photos they'd managed to get, John, Cameron, and Ellison had been able to estimate that the rockets were nearing completion, and they'd set an attack date for 1st August. John was still hoping to capture Area 51 – a mission so important that he'd decided to personally lead the bulk of Cheyenne Mountain's company to Nevada to link up with the Las Vegas cell and launch a joint attack. He knew the plan could easily go wrong, hence every unit around the world with tanks, artillery, and the few aircraft still in operation being mobilised to attack and destroy the various launch sites in case they failed.

Perry, naturally, had already disagreed with John, thinking they should simply blow up the rocket launch sites and be done with it; failing to see the bigger picture that that tactic would still leave them in relative isolation. John knew they couldn't beat Skynet alone, and it would take every single human left alive working together to bring down the beast. And their best chance at that was to capture Area 51 and reprogram the satellites for their own purposes.

It hadn't all been doom and gloom for them, he knew. John's wounds had healed well and he'd returned to light duties four days after waking up in the infirmary. 'Light' meaning no combat at all for John, at both Charlie's and Cameron's insistence; although he'd taken some time to take out a squad of new recruits for training exercises, needing to get out and do  _something_  that didn't involve long hours of sitting in the command centre at a radio – not that there were many people to speak with now that Skynet had shot down most of their satellites and had a chokehold on the airwaves, something John planned to change. Tomorrow, they'd head out towards Las Vegas, to take their offensive campaign against Skynet to another level.

John didn't want to think about that right now, though. Today was a special day; he'd earmarked it as a chance for the troops to unwind. All the soldiers who were embarking on the mission in Nevada had the day off, barring some major emergency. John had the troops out on reconnaissance and fighting patrols practically every day, and the men were exhausted. As a result, however, Skynet's forces in the region were on the defensive and John figured they could afford one day of rest. Two thirds of the men inside the mountain would take part in the attack on Area 51; John knew that at least some wouldn't be returning. So he'd given the order for a day of R&R. Although in reality he'd given the day off as an excuse to mask his real reasons.

John wrapped his arms tighter around Cameron and pulled her into an embrace, waiting until she rebooted out of standby mode. Her eyelids slowly opened and her vision was filled with John's face an inch away from hers.

"Hey Cam, happy built day," John smiled as he cupped the side of her face and gently kissed her. He'd not mentioned a word to her about her built day and he could see the look of surprise in her face - head cocked slightly, a slight pout, and one eyebrow raised so subtly that only John could have recognised it.

Cameron still didn't quite understand it all. She'd never had a built day before; they'd discussed it long ago, before John's sixteenth birthday, but had never spoken of it again after Sarkissian's car bomb and the chaos that followed. Not until his twentieth birthday had he asked about the day she'd first come online; July 24th 2026. She knew humans placed great value on their birthdays and those of their loved ones, and Cameron felt something she couldn't identify well up inside her that John appeared to place the same value on her built day – as he'd dubbed it many years ago.

She kissed him back, harder, pulling John on top of her as she deepened the kiss and opened her mouth to invite John's tongue as she ran her hand through John's hair and tried to pull him even closer, not wanting to be separated from him even by a few centimetres. John reciprocated and caressed her tongue and the inside of her mouth with his, losing himself in their passionate moment, not wanting anything to interrupt them.

He suddenly remembered that they'd both slept naked when Cameron began grinding her hips into him, his body betraying him as he became aroused. It took every last ounce of willpower he had to break the kiss and pull himself off of her before they went too far. He had plans for today and wouldn't get anything done if they just stayed in bed and had sex, no matter how tempting it was.

Cameron frowned in confusion as John pulled away and tried again, grabbing at his crotch with one hand while the other tried to pull his head closer for another kiss.

"Ah! None of that, Cam!" he caught her hand and waggled his finger at her in a mock telling off. Cameron looked very confused now; since they first made love on Judgement Day he'd never once refused her. She ran through several possibilities, trying to understand why he was refusing her now.

"It's my built day," she said. John had told her before that people got presents and got what they wanted on their birthdays. She wanted him. Was it different for her because she'd never actually been born? "Why don't you want to?"

"I'd like nothing more," he saw the confusion still on her face and decided to reassure her. "But not yet. I got you a present." John got up out of bed and pulled on a pair of boxers and jeans to make it harder for Cameron to seduce him, and more importantly, harder for him to give into her attempts. He pulled open a drawer and took out a Rubik's cube, and handed it to Cameron. Her eyes widened as she took it from John and turned it over, running her hands over the edges and inspecting it intently. John watched as she took a few moments to run her hand over several squares that looked out of place, and started to twist and turn the layers, which turned smoothly and didn't jam like the one she'd broken before. She stopped playing with it and looked up at John, a large smile beaming from her face.

"Do you like it?" John asked.

"Yes. It's tight," she replied as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a hug.

"It's the same one you had before," John explained as Cameron let him go and carried on playing with the Rubik's cube. When Cameron had confined him to bed until he'd recovered from the gunshot completely, John had found the perfect opportunity to sort out her present. He'd seen how devastated she'd been when she broke the puzzle before and he'd made up his mind the second the cube had shattered that he'd repair it for her. He'd gone to a lot of trouble for it; avoiding her on his little 'recon mission' with Davenport into Aurora and picking out the paints and glue. Even before Cameron had broken it there had been a dozen coloured squares missing. John had made new squares using pieces he'd cut from the coltan in her little workshop, and then painted them and stuck them onto the cube.

"I had to make some of the squares myself, so some of them are a little off colour." Cameron cared nothing about that and John could see it on her face. He instantly knew he'd made the right choice for a present. Yet another thing he loved about Cameron being a cyborg was how something so simple could create such a massive wellspring of joy inside her. Unlike human women; jewellery or expensive clothes meant nothing to her. She preferred simple, almost childish pleasures from puzzles and games that other people their age – or the age Cameron looked like – would have grown out of years ago. John secretly hoped she'd never lose her child like wonder and curiosity, something that separated her from both humans and machines and made her unique and very special in John's eyes.

"I've got a few errands to run, Cam," John said as he got up and finished getting dressed. He was deliberately wearing his own clothes today instead of uniform. Today he wasn't General Connor; he was just John – Cameron's John. Unless Skynet suddenly decided to attack the mountain with everything it had, Perry was in charge and John would spend the day alone with Cameron. "I'll be back in an hour, tops." He gave her a quick kiss and closed the door after him, leaving Cameron intent on her new present.

John left the living quarters and walked across the mountain's interior towards the mess hall, nodding towards the men he passed as they ate their breakfasts of tinned sausages and beans or fried eggs. He marched past them and into the adjoining kitchen, finding it empty as the men on cooking duty had already served up the first of the day's two meals and had cleaned up, leaving John the whole kitchen to himself.

He took a bag of sugar, some cocoa powder and some flour from the shelves; all had been left in storage since before Judgement Day, and picked some eggs from the fridge – laid by hens found on an abandoned farm by a 3rd Platoon recon squad and brought back for the very purpose John was using now; their eggs. Now he had all the ingredients to make Cameron a cake. Truthfully, he had no idea what he was doing. He cut himself a little slack, knowing that with warrior woman for a mom and a dad from a future where rat was probably a delicacy, cooking wasn't a skill that would come naturally to him. He wished now he'd watched Cameron and paid attention to something besides her pert backside as she'd cooked for him and Derek.  _Bah!_ He thought,  _how hard can it be?_

* * *

Charlie walked into the mess hall from the infirmary – having sacrificed breakfast to attend to three wounded men from the newly formed 4th Platoon. The main thing Charlie regretted since Perry had taken over from Derek as John's second in command was the number of casualties he had to deal with. Perry seemed overzealous in fighting Skynet, and both Charlie and Ellison agreed that he was trying to prove himself better than John. He'd spent most of the night and all morning patching up the wounded men – one who'd managed to regain consciousness claimed they'd already blown apart a small factory that had recently appeared in Colorado Springs, but Perry had ordered them to take out every last machine, which had resulted in the men getting injured in a needless fire fight.

Once he'd made sure the three men were stable, he'd left Sergeant Ford in charge of the infirmary and headed for the kitchen to fix up something to eat. On the way to the kitchen, through the sparsely filled mess hall, he saw a dozen or so soldiers laughing, chatting, and eating some kind of gooey brown substance.

"Hey, lieutenant," Private Sharpe greeted Charlie as he approached his table. "Want to try some of this?"

"What is it?" Charlie peered closer and frowned at the sticky dark brown goo on the private's plate.

"It's  _supposed_  to be cake. I think. Connor's in there whipping up a whole batch of them. That's his third one," he pointed to a larger pile of the same goo on a plate on the centre table. "He may be a first class general, but the man's a piss poor cook."

"It can't be  _that_  bad, the way you're shovelling it down," Charlie commented.

"Any fresh food we can get, sir," Sharpe grinned. The private had a point, Charlie thought. Since their fresh food supplies had ran out they'd been relying almost solely on tinned and dried foods, leaving the field rations for missions for now. John had also rationed their meals to two a day; a decision that everyone knew was necessary but still proved unpopular, especially among the civilians. Charlie left Sharpe and his friends to their 'food' and walked into the kitchen, his ears instantly assaulted by a barrage of expletives that would put any drunken sailor to shame.

"John Connor, I didn't think your mom brought you up to use language like that!" Charlie mock chided John.

"Yeah, she didn't raise me to cook, either," John sighed, exasperated as he took his fourth attempt out of the oven. This one was rock hard and so badly burnt that it looked like a lump of charcoal rather than a cake. John wondered what his mom might have ever had planned for him if they'd managed to stop Judgement Day. He certainly wouldn't have made it as a chef; that was for sure.

"Jesus, John. What did you cook it with, thermite? What the hell are you doing, anyway?"

"I'm  _trying_  to make a cake for Cameron." John replied.

"Oh, right. Her... building day, was it?"

 _"Built_   _day_ ," John corrected him. He knew Charlie didn't get it, none of them would. But Charlie was open-minded and as long as John was happy and Cameron didn't hurt him, she had his blessing. Not that Charlie had the first clue about what to do if Cameron ever did do anything to hurt him. "I don't get it, Charlie. I'm supposed to be this great military leader, I  _supposedly_  beat Skynet at every turn, and I can hack a Triple 8's chip no problem, so why is a  _cake_  getting the better of me?"

"Your mom had the same problem, remember?" They both remembered the time when John and Sarah lived with Charlie. His mom, as usual for the modern day goddess of war, had been hopeless in the kitchen and Charlie had done most of the cooking for the family. Now the evidence that John had inherited Sarah's culinary skills was staring him in the face, blackened and smouldering on a plate.

How many eggs are you using?" Charlie asked, remembering the gooey substance Private Sharpe and his friends had been eating.

"Just one in that one," John pointed to the 'cake' he'd removed from the oven. "I put a lot in the others... I've got no idea what I'm doing."

"I can see that," Charlie grinned as he rolled his sleeves up and took out some more eggs. "Well," he said, noting the cocoa powder and icing sugar John had laid out. "You had the right idea, at least. All girls love chocolate, even tin ones I guess."

"She can't really taste it," John replied. "Not like we can."

"Probably a good thing, the way you've burnt it."

"Hey," John pretended to look hurt. "Are you going to help me or just make fun?"

"I can do both." Charlie showed him  _exactly_  what to do, taking him through the steps but letting John do most of it himself. It was as if they were back in Nebraska and John was still fifteen. Neither of them said it but they both missed the bond they'd had before, and it had been too long since they'd spent any real time together.

* * *

Cameron brought up her internal clock and saw that John had been gone for over three hours; much longer than he'd said he'd be. Cameron was a little upset that John had left her alone on her built day. Whatever he'd left for, she assumed it was an important task; but still, she wanted to be with John, today of all days. John had promised her that he'd make time to spend with her, and she'd been looking forward to this day for what felt like forever. She was a Terminator, and as such, she knew that she could wait for as long as it took; patience was programmed into every infiltrator and in theory she should be able to wait forever. But she'd been excited about her built day from the moment John woke her up; relished spending time alone with John, and now he'd spent three hours away from her.

She'd spent the time playing with her Rubik's cube, wanting to solve it but at the same time trying to savour the pleasure she got from it and make it last as long as possible. She didn't know why she found it so fascinating, but apart from being with John, and eating – something that made her feel human – it was the only thing that she found pleasure in. She loved the cube, but she'd prefer to be with John. She was still unsure why he'd turned down her advances. He'd reassured her over and over that he'd always love her, always want her and no other, and that she is and always would be 'the most beautiful and amazing person' he'd ever know. So while she was certain to within point one percent that he still loved her, she didn't know why he'd refused her. He was attracted to her still, she knew that. Her detailed files on anatomy and human mating habits told her that much from John's physical reaction earlier, even if she hadn't of known from experience with John.

As she got up to get dressed and look for John the bedroom door opened as John came in, his t shirt covered in a white powdered substance; most likely thermite, she calculated. She frowned as she realised John had been working all this time.

"Where were you?" She asked him.

"Busy, with Charlie. John kissed her, began to peel off his clothes and threw them to the floor. "I need a shower, Cam, you want to join me?" Cameron licked her lips and gave him a smouldering look as she followed him into their bathroom eagerly in anticipation.

* * *

Cameron had been disappointed to find that John still hadn't touched her or made any advance on her in the shower. Despite her best efforts John had gently pushed her away, forcing her to settle for nothing more than light kissing. She was getting frustrated at both his rejection and at the fact that she'd tried everything in her files on seduction, and John hadn't fallen for any of it. But this was also another reason she knew that John would beat Skynet. She was the best the AI had ever created – though she loathed being associated with Skynet in any way – she'd been created by Skynet with the sole purpose of seducing and terminating John Connor, and even  _she_  couldn't break through his defences.

Worse than that, John had teased her relentlessly while they'd showered together; kissing along her jaw line, down her neck to her collar, while his hands glided over her soft curves, brushing his fingertips delicately against her skin, just enough to leave her yearning for more. And then he'd turned off the water, given her a quick peck on the lips, towelled off and gotten dressed.

After their anticlimactic shower session, John had told her he wanted to spend the day with her alone out on the mountainside. Once they were dressed, John slung a rucksack over his shoulders and led the way outside. As soon as they were out of the tunnel they walked up the rocky slope, hand in hand. Cameron was much happier now that she was alone with John, even if being outside meant she was constantly scanning for threats. They walked slowly, ambling their way up the mountain in no great rush, both of them enjoying the chance to be alone together. For John there was another reason why he'd decided to take a walk, this was the first time he'd been outside since before Judgement Day that wasn't on a mission. They were alone, outside, without fear of UCAVs or T-1 patrols. There was always a chance that a HK or Pegasus could fly overhead, but they'd be taken care of in short order by the sentry guns Cameron had built.

"Cameron, are you okay?" John asked after walking for several hours, in comfortable silence for the most part. Both of them caught up in their own thoughts. Cameron had looked a little nervous at being outside, and John had noticed.

"I don't want to go to Nevada," Cameron replied. She'd been tetchy every time the Area 51 mission was brought up but hadn't told John why. Whatever it was, it clearly bothered her and John was determined to hear it out, if only to try and reassure her.

"Why not, does something happen in Nevada to me? In the future, I mean."

"No," she answered truthfully, deciding to defy her orders from Future John and tell him everything. "You tried to stop the rocket launch at Vandenberg in 2015. You failed and were captured, and sent to a Skynet work camp. It's the same mission we'll be on tomorrow." John was stuck for words for a moment. No wonder she'd been nervous about the mission, why she'd all but begged John to let Perry or Derek lead it instead.

"We're not going to Vandenberg, Cam, and we won't fail." That still wasn't enough for Cameron, but she could see that John wouldn't budge on the issue. He was determined, stubborn; traits he shared with his future self that she admired.

"Please be careful, John." She said with a blank voice, but her eyes betrayed the worry she felt for him.

"I promise," John stuck his hand up, "scout's honour." Cameron had been extra protective of him since he'd been wounded in Aurora, and he knew he couldn't blame her. He knew only a small part of her concern was due to her mission, she'd torn herself apart with worry for him and he promised he'd never put her through that again.

Something in the corner of John's eye took his attention and he turned around, blinking a few times to make sure the sight he was seeing was real and not some kind of hallucination.

Walking out in front of them were four giraffes; three adults and a baby, happily ignoring the human and the cyborg as they searched for food. John knew there was a zoo on top of Cheyenne Mountain with the largest giraffe population in North America; he'd read about it when researching the base as a place to hide while the bombs fell. Still, the sight of actual wildlife before him, not just surviving, but seemingly thriving out on the mountain, filled him with hope that despite what Skynet threw at them, life would always find a way to bounce back.

John was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of a gun cocking and turned to see Cameron aiming a pistol at the nearest giraffe, the significance that John had found from the sight of them obviously lost on her.

"Hey! No Cam, stop!" John pulled her arm upwards as she pulled the trigger, forcing her aim high; the bullet hit nothing but air. "What're you doing?"

"Fresh meat will improve your diet and boost morale," she answered, her gun still out.

"No! Just... just leave them be," John sighed as Cameron put her pistol away.  _Typical Cameron,_  he thought. She'd just spoiled what he thought was a very romantic scene by trying to kill something, even if she'd meant well. Sadly, he wasn't surprised that she'd taken a gun with her on a romantic walk. It was things like that that reminded John she'd never be fully human; no matter how much she evolved, how human she became, the cyborg in her would always be there. John smiled and knew he wouldn't have it any other way.

John took her hand in his once more and watched them go by until they were out of sight.

"Where did you go this morning?" Cameron asked, not quite what John had expected her to ask. "You were gone for three hours and eighteen minutes, and returned covered in powder; most likely thermite."

"It wasn't thermite, Cam. It was  _flour."_

"Why were you using flour? You can't cook."

 _"Don't I know it,"_  John grinned knowingly. He looked around, taking in the view beneath them. The remains of Fort Carson were visible, only a few miles away. The scenery below was breathtaking and depressing at the same time; the immediate area surrounding the mountain had been mostly untouched by the nuclear blasts, but nuclear winter had killed off nearly every plant and tree in sight. Only the toughest, hardiest plants survived. Still, it had an eerie beauty to it that John found appealing. After spending so much time indoors, even a desolate landscape looked an inviting backdrop. "Let's stop here and eat." John sat down on a patch of smooth rock and opened up his pack, taking out two tins of spaghetti Bolognese and handing one to Cameron as she sat beside him.

Cameron noted the sour look on John's face as he ate. She wished she could experience taste as humans knew it. She could analyse the content of what she ate but experienced no actual pleasure from the data she received. She liked very spicy foods because although she couldn't taste them, the heat from the dish made her tongue tingle slightly. She also liked ice cream and fizzy drinks for similar reasons, but she and John had shared the last tub of the ice cream Lieutenant Davenport had salvaged from Fort Carson's freezers several weeks ago, and would likely never eat it again. John had told her shortly after the fresh food had been used up that she should be glad she couldn't taste; because most of the food was terrible. Cameron could agree with him to some extent on the spaghetti they were eating; it felt slimy and cold in her mouth. She couldn't taste it and  _still_  she didn't enjoy it. Still, she hoped one day she could learn to interpret the sensory data on her tongue as actual taste.

When John had finished his food he finally answered her question. "This is what I was doing earlier, Cam." He pulled out a package wrapped in paper and handed it to her. She opened the paper wrapping to reveal a small chocolate cake, freshly made from the look of it. "It's your built day cake."

"You made it?" Cameron asked. "You can't cook. You're worse than Derek."

"Hey," John swatted playfully at her. "I'm not  _that_  bad!"

"Derek Reese never set fire to the kitchen while making toast," she replied curtly, a crooked grin on her lips.

"Well, Charlie helped...  _a little_." John decided not to tell her it was his fifth attempt. She'd said it herself; he was a terrible cook. She could probably even work out how many attempts he'd made by judging how long he was gone for. Instead of flogging a dead horse trying to defend his pitiful skills in the kitchen, he took out a single candle and stuck it in the centre of the cake, lighting it with a match from the kitchen.

"Blow it out, Cam. Make a wish." Cameron didn't see how blowing out a candle on a cake could grant someone's wish, but she knew it was part of birthday tradition and John had clearly gone to a lot of effort, so she'd humour him. She thought about what she wanted; more than anything she wanted John to be safe and for them never to be apart. She blew on the candle, a little too hard as it was dislodged from the cake and fell to the ground. "I wished for..."

 _"Don't say it!"_  John interrupted her. "It won't come true."

"Wishing on a cake won't make it come true," Cameron interjected.

"I don't know about that," John pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed it gently. "It did for me, once." John broke the cake in half and gave her a piece. She delicately placed it in her mouth and analysed its contents. She could tell without tasting that the cake was as it should be; it was light and fluffy, with a sticky, smooth chocolate centre. She smiled slightly as she realised that Charlie Dixon had likely done more than 'helped a little'.

"Cam, I've been thinking about something," John started as he finished his slice. "When Davenport found out you're a cyborg, he freaked out at first, but he's taken it pretty well." Cameron saw his point; the lieutenant's knee jerk reaction was the same as every single human she'd encountered in the future who'd learned her identity. But in the weeks John had her and Lieutenant Davenport working together, he'd learnt to get along with her, even if he was still slightly uneasy around her.

"I'm thinking, maybe everyone else will be okay with it if we just  _tell_ them rather than wait for them to find out. After we kick Skynet's ass across Nevada and come home, I'm going to tell everyone. About  _us,_ too; I don't care what they might think about us." John meant every word of it; morale had been high since he'd taken command and he genuinely believed that if their good luck continued in Nevada that people would be able to accept it, that they didn't necessarily have to be like Derek. He was even hopeful that he could stop them from automatically hating every machine and get them to fully accept Cameron, despite being a cyborg.

Cameron had heard enough. She said nothing but stood up, taking John's hand and pulling him to his feet, and marched back down the mountain; neither of them spoke a single word during their descent. She kept his hand tightly in hers until they were through the blast doors and then led him back to their quarters.

As soon as John shut the door she was upon him. She pushed John down to the bed, straddling his hips as she held his face in her hands and kissed him deeply. This time John didn't push her away or refuse. He slowly removed her clothes, piece by piece until she was bare, kissing every inch of flesh he uncovered as she did the same to him, deliberately slowing down and ignoring their mutually growing sense of urgency. He'd made her wait all day for this and he planned on them savouring every last moment. It felt different to both of them; it wasn't as passionate or rushed as their first time together, when they'd tried to greedily devour each other. They took their time, each enjoying what the other had to offer and basking in the sensual delights they both received in return.

Cameron gave out a slight mewl of pleasure as John gently slipped into her, her eyes once again glowed a soft blue that entranced John as he moved in her. Every nerve in her body – organic and cybernetic – was consumed in rapturous fire as she and John made love. His lips found hers once more; instead of crashing together passionately, their kiss was slow, constant and smouldering. John kept his eyes open and locked with hers, not wanting to lose sight of her for a single moment as naked, connected, they danced. They were connected in every sense of the word, not merely at the loins or the lips, but their minds, their very souls, were connected in a way neither of them had ever thought possible.

For hours they were as one. One being, one mind, one soul, as they ignored their individual needs and sought only to please the other; moving against each other towards their mutual pleasure, and finally cried out together in shared ecstasy.

John held Cameron closely in his arms afterwards, both of them still tingling slightly and bathing in the warm afterglow of their act. Spent, John fought to keep his eyes open. He knew it was such a guy thing to do; falling asleep after sex. He tried to fight the urge but it was inevitable.

Both of them knew they'd miss this. They didn't know how long they'd be in Nevada for, but John doubted they'd get the chance to be together like this while they were there. He made a mental note to wake up early and do it again in the morning, although he didn't see how it could ever compare to what they'd just done. This time had been completely on another level; lust hadn't played even the slightest part in their act. Their first ever time together had been explosive. This had been something entirely different; slow burning and all consuming.

There were no words John could think of to even describe it, nor was there anything he could say could possibly follow it. He said the only thing he could think of before he lost the battle to stay awake, even if it didn't speak one iota of how he truly felt.

"I love you Cameron."

"I love you too, John. Thank you for my built day." Cameron stayed awake and watched him drift to sleep; gently stroking his face as he loudly snored like a pig. She didn't care. Strangely, she liked it. She didn't enter standby mode that night, she was happy to hold John in her arms and be held in his, and instead watched him slumber peacefully.

* * *

 

**Denver**

"God damn it!" Jessica Morgan yelled over the din of gunfire as a heavy volley of 30mm shells roared inches over her head and shattered the 4x4 several metres behind her, the driver and gunner still inside vanished in a hail of fire. They'd been pressing the advantage General Connor's commando assaults on the airfields had bought them and were in the process of taking out a small factory that had popped up recently in Denver, when reinforcements showed up out of nowhere.

Now her squad was getting cut to ribbons by the T-2s that had arrived, and 2nd Squad were pinned down by a pair of HKs; both Stinger missiles in the hands of her own squad mates and useless against the thick armour of the antitank UGVs. Jessica jumped up and ran for the cover of a pile of debris, shells exploding around her as she fired in the direction of the nearest T-2, not seeing whether her thermite rounds were connecting with the target or not. She was too concerned with keeping one step ahead of the heavy rounds exploding right behind her. She dived for the debris pile and just barely made it to find herself pinned with the other four members of her squad in the same position.

"Now what?" one of her men, Davies, asked her. They were out of grenades and only had thermite rounds left, which worked fine against T-1s but required sustained and concentrated fire to bring down the larger, more heavily armoured T-2s. And the way they were raining fire down on Jessica and her squad, they'd never live long enough to put that many rounds into them. Apart from their Stingers they had no rockets, and no real chance of beating the trio of T-2 behemoths that were quickly moving to flank them. Jessica found herself unsure of what to do; she needed the other squad to help them out but they were still pinned down and her own squad's radio was trashed, shattered by a 30mm round that had also torn apart the man operating it.

Before she could give any orders she heard the deafening report of another heavy gun from the opposite direction, followed by a second shot that sounded like the crack of doom, resulting in a slight slackening of fire as one of the T-2s was lobotomised by the high calibre rounds. Jessica peeked around the debris pile and saw a lone man standing tall on top of a battered semi truck, a massive sniper rifle in his hands that was almost as big as her. He fired two more shots – their reports drowning out even the rapid fire barking of the drones' massive cannons - and two explosions tore into the heads of the T-2s, shattering their sensors and CPUs. Jessica watched intently as the man dropped the rifle and threw a pair of hand grenades in a high arc towards the machines, both impacted the upper chests of the machines and exploded; the high explosives tore through their armour and ripped their chain guns from their 'shoulders'. Once the final grenade exploded everything was silent.

Jessica ran out to meet their saviour as he easily jumped down from his spot on top of the truck. She was greeted by what she saw as an absolute god of a man. Six foot four at least, powerfully built with a large chest and broad shoulders, and swept back dark blonde hair.  _Cute too,_  she thought.

"Hey, thanks for saving our asses back there, that was amazing! Are you from Cheyenne? Part of Connor's group?"

 _"John_  Connor? No," the man answered, tilting his head slightly at the mention of the great general."

"We've got to help out our other squad, but we'd love it if you could join us," Jessica offered. He nodded his agreement and flashed her and awkward smile. She got a weird vibe from the newcomer, but he'd already proven himself far too useful with that rifle of his and that grenade stunt he pulled to pass up. "Great. Anyway, I'm Jessica Morgan," she stuck her hand out for the newcomer, who took her hand in a vice like grip as they shook.

"Robert Kester," the man replied.


	11. Viva Las Vegas

**28** **th** **July 2011**

_"I don't like this, Connor,"_ Perry's voice grumbled through the radio, complaining as usual.

"I said radio  _silence,_  Perry," John snapped back into his own radio mouthpiece. "That means  _shut up!"_  John didn't like it much either; their entire convoy – all six Abrams tanks, three Strykers, four Humvees, and the pair of M3 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicles were parked in the middle of the desert, protecting their fuel tanker and cargo truck, and waiting for a sign from the Las Vegas units to advance towards the city. The leader of the four cells operating in Las Vegas seemed to be paranoid about people leading the machines to their city, which had seen relatively little Skynet activity. He'd told John in a garbled, static heavy radio transmission to wait at the coordinates they were currently parked idle in and wait for their own soldiers to lead them to their base of operations, once they were sure John and his convoy hadn't been followed.

The only thing stopping John from ignoring the Las Vegas commander's instructions was that he'd not told John exactly  _where_  their base of operations was. Cameron had come up with nothing – understandably not knowing where  _every_  resistance base in the world had been, and having operated entirely around Southern California in the future before she came back to protect him.

So they sat out in the desert for hours and waited, while their Humvees did the same thing a mile out to the north, south, east, and west, respectively, to give advanced warning on anything coming out from the desert.

"Looks like another exciting hour of sitting here," Davenport sighed from the driver's seat of their Humvee as he checked his watch for the umpteenth time. John thought Davenport looked as bored as  _he_  felt, and let out a sigh of his own. Cameron sighed as well, imitating the other two occupants of the car. She knew why they were sighing, of course. She knew they were bored and getting impatient, something she understood but never experienced. She could wait forever, or as long as her power cell ran, at least.

They'd been travelling for three days; leaving in the morning the day after they'd celebrated her built day. The morning after, before they'd left had been pure bliss. They'd ignored breakfast – still having some of the cake John had made – and spent the morning in each other's arms until it was time for them to step outside their quarters and for John to once again wear the mantle of leadership, leaving James Ellison in charge of Cheyenne Mountain while he was gone. Since then, however, seventy nine men and one cyborg had been sat in their cramped vehicles almost non stop for three days; and many – Perry being chief among them – were getting bored and stressed. Being made to wait in the desert for hours when Las Vegas was within spitting distance didn't help the soldiers' moods, which were quickly turning foul. Many were itching for a fight and hoping they'd have a contact out in the desert, simply to have something to do.

"You hear anything, Cam?" John asked, turning to his petite companion, knowing she had much better sight and hearing than anyone in the convoy, even aided with onboard thermal imaging equipment.

"Nothing," she replied. While not technically true, she knew from past experience that John wouldn't care about the myriad of insects and other such insignificant creatures she could hear scuttling over the desert floor. She could also hear the muffled voices of some of the louder soldiers inside the other vehicles. "I hear Captain Perry complaining," she reported.

"Nothing new there, then," Davenport quipped as he stretched out and prepared for another long hour of doing nothing. Since all the vehicles' lights – inside and out – had been switched off and the desert night was pitch black, John wrapped his arm around Cameron and pulled her close. She said nothing but smiled and leaned into his embrace as John kissed her forehead, both of them knowing they wouldn't have many chances to be close like this while they were out in Nevada.

"Hey, do you mind?" Davenport asked after loudly clearing his throat twice and John and Cameron failing to take the hint. "We're not _all_  loved up in this car, you know."

"I caught you  _screwing_  in a tank last month," John replied. Cameron's advanced night vision allowed her to see everything in full colour even in the dark, and she saw Davenport go red with embarrassment at John's comment. "How did that go, anyway?" John asked.

"Ah, not that well, sir," Davenport confessed. "When I saw her in Denver, you know... when you got shot, well, she kind of ignored me." John and Cameron shared a knowing look; the reason she'd ignored Davenport was because she'd spent all her time pining over John, much to Cameron's chagrin. John didn't have the heart to tell Davenport the truth.

"Jessica Morgan is not romantically interested in you; she had sex with you to make John jealous," Cameron said bluntly, still lacking any tact or subtlety. "She's a bitch whore," she added when Davenport's shoulders slumped slightly. John simply shook his head in disbelief.

"Yeah, that she is," Davenport sighed. John couldn't help but feel sorry for the lieutenant. He'd heard from some of the soldiers in Davenport's platoon that he was something of a lovesick puppy and had nothing but bad luck with women, including one account of a daring 'escape and evasion' from the house of a married woman when her husband came home early from work one morning. Still, John didn't feel so bad for Davenport that he'd take his arm off Cameron and spoil their little moment.

Cameron shot bolt upright and started scanning the sky outside her window, breaking out of her embrace with John.

"Aircraft," she said before John could ask; her keen hearing picking up the sound of engines in the distance.

"Contact, everyone stand to!" John spoke into his radio and popped the hatch on the Humvee roof to man the mounted .50 cal heavy machine gun. Cameron pulled him down and took his place, unwilling to chance anything happening to him should they find themselves in a fire fight. Cameron saw the guns and missile launchers on the other vehicles swivel around as they either came online or were manned and readied for battle. As she cocked the gun she increased her hearing to maximum sensitivity and realised something was amiss. The engine noises she heard didn't match up to the sound profiles she had of any HK models, X-45 or X-47 Pegasus, or Aurora bombers – Skynet's principle air units. She compared the sounds to every UCAV type in her files that she'd come across and came up with no match.

She found her answer as a pair of Apache attack helicopters buzzed overhead and then turned round for another pass over their convoy.

 _"Unknown ground vehicles; identify yourselves immediately or we will kill you,"_ one of the pilots voices came through the radio in a garbled transmission.

"Friendly bunch aren't they," Davenport muttered. John couldn't agree more; they'd been expecting a warmer reception than a pair of attack helicopters threatening to blast them to kingdom come. But still, John couldn't help but be impressed that Las Vegas had a pair of birds like those at their disposal.  _Maybe we actually have a chance at this,_  John thought.

"This is General John Connor from Cheyenne Mountain," John replied through the radio.

Half a minute ticked by until they heard from the pilot with an attitude again, John guessed he was relaying John's message back to their base.  _"Cheyenne Mountain convoy, follow our lead; we will escort you to North Las Vegas Airport."_

"About damn time," John heard Perry huff over the radio. John called the outlying Humvees back and told Davenport to lead the convoy, following the Apaches' path. The attack helicopters led them northwest, away from the devastated main strip at the centre of the city and towards the small commercial airport on the outskirts.

The Apaches hovered overhead as the convoy eventually rolled into the airport and directed towards a hangar on the near end of the runway. Far from being an abandoned, obliterated landscape like Las Vegas proper, the airport was a hive of activity. As they rolled through the airport John guessed there were a good few hundred people around, at least. Why they weren't all hiding underground, evading Skynet's patrols, he had no idea. None of them looked particularly worried about being seen. The only clue that the airport wasn't running normally was the fact that there were no lights outside whatsoever and everybody was working in the dark.

Driving by the runway, John saw how the group in Las Vegas made his own company in Cheyenne Mountain seem pathetically ill equipped; the truck full of weapons and supplies he'd brought along as a gesture of goodwill seemed redundant now. There were two more Apache helicopters on the tarmac that he could see; several groups of tanks and armoured vehicles, and even a pair of F-16s inside one of the larger hangars. John had pulled out all the stops out to get as many resistance units as he could prepared for this mission, but the sight of it all felt overwhelming.

As the last vehicle in the convoy rolled to a stop John, Cameron, and Davenport exited their Humvee and walked forward to see who was in charge. All the other soldiers cooped up inside the armoured personnel carriers leapt out to stretch their legs, eager to be out in fresh air and not inside a tin can any longer. Both Derek and Perry approached John and Cameron as a trio of men in army uniform marched up to them and led their group to what had once been the departures lounge.

"Which one of you is General Connor?" A very pissed off looking man with thinning grey hair and a slight pot belly sticking out from his army uniform asked, his eyes scanning over Perry and Derek as the most likely candidates.

"Don't look at me, I just work here," Perry replied. "He's the general," he nodded towards John.

 _"You?"_  the officer asked. "What is this, some kind of joke? You're a kid!"

"Yeah, I get that a lot," John brushed past the officer without bothering to even look at him as he spoke. He'd gotten used to people questioning his age by now and it was just water off a duck's back to him. The officer looked questioningly to Derek and Perry, who simply nodded that they were indeed serious.

"Whatever," the officer shrugged his shoulders. "I'm lieutenant colonel David Ryan; Nevada National Guard."

" _General_ John Connor," John reintroduced himself, making sure Ryan knew exactly who was running the show, before he introduced the others, "Lieutenants Baum and Davenport, Captain Perry, and Cameron."

"Who's she?" Ryan cast a condescending glance on the petite brunette in front of him who looked like she was barely out of high school.

"Cameron's an expert on Skynet," John replied simply. "So, are we going to get down to business or what?"

"Okay," Ryan said. "All the men are staying in the departure lounge for now," he spoke as he pointed to various parts of the cavernous building they were in. "Eat over there," he pointed to a cafeteria style line where men in uniform were queuing up for food, before pointing his other arm in the opposite direction; "Shit over there. Sleep wherever you can find the space." John dismissed his men to settle down and rest, while he and Cameron followed Ryan to his office to discuss their plans. Once inside, Ryan closed the door, sat at a desk and pulled out a bottle of twelve year old Scotch whisky from the drawer, not bothering to offer John or Cameron any. John took note of the office; desk piled high with papers, M4 assault rifle leaning against the wall under the windowsill, and a couch opposite with a sleeping bag rolled up on one end. A few paper dirty plates were piled underneath the couch, with the scraps of some meal or another still on the top one. John guessed Ryan was living in his office most of the time.  _A desk jockey,_  he thought,  _no wonder he's got no fight in him._

"So..." John said.

"We've got all the units you asked for," Ryan replied. "Four units from Las Vegas – mostly National Guard, plus Las Vegas Police and Fire Departments. A few civvies mixed in here and there, too. We've got a company each from Utah and Arizona National Guard; half of those personnel carriers out there belong to them. We've got just over four hundred men here to fight; forty tanks and other armoured vehicles – not including yours- and you may have noticed the birds we've got on the tarmac," he grinned proudly.

"Good," John replied, thinking that with all that firepower at their disposal they might just pull this off. "How about intelligence, did you send out the recon patrols like I asked you?"

"Yeah, I sent 'em out," Ryan said sourly.

"And?"

"I sent two teams out and they never came back. We don't have a fucking clue what to expect there; it's  _Area 51_ , for God's sake!" Ryan took a slug of the whisky to calm himself before he continued. "That place had miles of cameras and sensors  _before_  Skynet took over; anyone who goes there now isn't coming back." John found himself getting tired of Ryan's attitude already; he couldn't believe he'd found someone even more irritating than Perry.  _At least Perry gets the job done,_  John thought. Ryan had admitted he was National Guard - a weekend warrior; in it for the extra cash. John figured the guy had probably been an insurance salesman or some such before Judgement Day.

"What about the F-16 aircraft?" Cameron asked. "You could have used them for aerial reconnaissance."

"We don't want Skynet knowing we've got them," Ryan answered. "Las Vegas has been pretty quiet since the nukes all went off. Machines come out from Nellis AFB and patrol here maybe once, twice a week. We lay low, move around during the night only, and Skynet's none the wiser we're even here."

 _They're hiding,_  John thought. Ryan was simply hoping that they could lay low and Skynet would forget about them.  _No wonder he's not happy to see us._  John couldn't blame them for wanting to simply hide away; he'd done that himself plenty before when he was sixteen. Thankfully he'd managed to grow up enough in time to see he couldn't run away and hide, or try to be normal and pretend it was going to all just go away. Still, he'd learnt to grow up and deal with Skynet head on; he couldn't have a people – especially a group with the kind of resources Las Vegas boasted – not pulling their weight. Not when there were pitifully small groups like the Denver and Colorado Springs cells; units with only a few dozen men and women each, with precious little in the way of firepower or training, who got stuck in regardless. John felt the Las Vegas units owed it to everyone in Nevada and the rest of the world to stand up and fight.

"We're still doing this," John said to Ryan. "Your men are ready?"

"Hey," Ryan protested, "I said we'd let you stay here; I thought  _your_  guys were going to take out Area 51."

"We need  _everyone,_ " John replied, getting further aggravated by what he saw as Ryan's cowardice. "You said it yourself; we don't know what to expect, so I'll expect the worst."

"We've got civvies here need looking after," Ryan said. "You expecting them to fight as well?"

"Not yet, but they'll have to eventually," John answered. John had set some pretty fair rules for the civilians they'd rescued and taken back to Cheyenne; everyone does their bit. Everyone who could hold a gun was expected to at least train with it. 4th Infantry formed the bulk of their power, and the three offensive platoons; but the fifty or so civilians now living in the mountain had all taken up defensive duties in their absence. John had made his expectations clear to every new group of arrivals that took up residence in Cheyenne Mountain, and made it clear anyone who didn't agree with his rules was free to leave. He expected the same in Las Vegas; everyone had to do their part or the human race was screwed.

Cameron stood and watched the discussion between John and Lieutenant Colonel Ryan. She felt a sense of pride welling up for John; he was once again proving to be the only human up to the task of leading the fight against Skynet, when others like Ryan would rather run or hide. She had no record of a Lieutenant Colonel Ryan in her files but had met countless humans like him in the future.

She didn't understand why some humans would stand and fight while others either ran or hid. She'd initially thought that training was a factor; John, Sarah Connor, and Derek Reese had all been trained to fight – even if not by conventional military training. The 4th Infantry soldiers who'd formed under John's command were all trained soldiers. They all fought. She found anomalies in her theory in the forms of James Ellison, Charlie Dixon, and many other civilians working with the resistance; especially in the smaller cells John had established and supplied around Colorado. None of them had any military training that she was aware of; Charlie Dixon was a medic, and James Ellison had been FBI – trained to fight criminals and had some firearms training, but definitely not trained in military tactics or survival. Yet they had fought alongside her, John, and Derek, against T888s, without hesitation.

She knew no two humans were alike, but she was curious to find out what made them so different. She didn't know what made her different from other cyborgs; what made her feel emotion where they did not. She wasn't sure if it was due to the damage to her CPU or not. John had told her he thought it was simply because she was special; that her developing emotions weren't because of the damage to her chip, but  _in spite_ of it. She didn't understand what made  _her_  unique; and compared to her, humans were an enigma. One she didn't know if she'd ever fully understand.

Cameron realised her mind had drifted from the debate between John and Ryan to her own existential musings. Again, a result of her damaged CPU, she believed. She'd noted before that humans did this a lot. She wondered if this meant she was becoming more human, before snapping out of it again and paying attention to John and Ryan.

"Everyone has to fight," Cameron jumped into the conversation after taking a moment to replay what they'd been discussing.

"And  _why_  am I going to listen to a teenage girl?" Ryan asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Because  _I_ listen to her," John snapped. "This isn't up for debate, Ryan. Hiding in the ruins won't get you far. Area 51 and Nellis air base are a stone's throw away. You want to be safe; take them out."

"Yeah, its okay for you guys to talk. I heard it's pretty sweet in Colorado; sitting on your asses all nice and safe in your mountain."

"Colorado is safer because John Connor eliminated the biggest threats from Skynet," Cameron countered as she stared at Ryan with her best dead shark expression, feeling the need to defend John even from verbal attacks.

"We're not arguing about this," John said firmly. "We need you and your men. Without you, we fail. If we fail, Skynet's satellites go up; the machines have eyes and ears everywhere, we're all cut off, and Skynet hunts us all down like rats." John watched Ryan taking in what he'd just said; weighing the cost of sending his men on such a dangerous mission with the consequences of the mission failing because he didn't lend his support. In the end, he'd tried to save face by insisting that his own men ran Area 51 once John captured it. That was fine with John; he just wanted to do this mission and then get back to Cheyenne Mountain.

"Look, it's late," Ryan said, not wanting to stay in the discussion any longer now that he'd realised he'd come across as a coward, and having to concede to John that his men would be involved in the mission had been embarrassing, but not as much as when he'd seen John's point about the bigger picture. "I'm going to turn in. There's empty offices down the corridor; better than sleeping down there with the troops." Not wanting to aggravate the annoying little grey haired lieutenant colonel further – simply for making things go as smoothly as possible, John took the hint and led Cameron out of Ryan's office. John checked in with Perry and Davenport to make sure the men had settled in okay; Perry told him that the Cheyenne Mountain soldiers had set themselves in the far end of the departure lounge and the whole airport was starting to settle down for the night.

Once he'd made sure everything with his own men were okay he found an empty office for him and Cameron and closed the door.

"What do you think of all this then, Cam?" John asked.

"Las Vegas has more men and equipment than we do. Why don't they want to fight?"

"I don't know, Cam. Some people just try and pretend it's not there and hope it'll go away."

"That's not an effective strategy," Cameron replied as John sat down on a small, old leather couch, identical to the one in Ryan's office, and patted the space next to him. Cameron sat down next to John and leaned into him, glad to once again have time alone with him. John's mind, however, was racing, thinking of what to do and how to capture Area 51 when they didn't have the slightest clue what they'd be up against. The logical answer, he knew, was to attack it as swiftly as possible, using as much force as he could bring to bear.

"I know," he answered. "Sometimes people are dumb like that."

John wanted more than anything to get this attack over with so he could get back to Cheyenne Mountain and start leading the rest of the world, and spend some decent time alone with Cameron. Even alone together in the office, John didn't feel secure. Only in his quarters in Cheyenne did he feel like he and Cameron could truly be themselves. He wondered if that would ever happen; would he direct from Cheyenne Mountain via satellites and radios, or would he fight on the front lines with the troops? He already knew the answer to that question. Deep down, he knew he'd never be able to lead from the rear. He knew he'd have to lead by example; that it was more fitting to lead the charge out of the trenches, that people would rally behind a leader who fought with his men shoulder to shoulder on the front lines. And as such, he knew that as long as the war was ongoing, this was how it would be. He and Cameron would have precious little time together; their relationship would be severely strained and reduced to the few scraps of time they could spend alone together between missions.

The thought of reducing what little they already together started to severely depress John. He knew he'd have to sacrifice their time together for the good of the human race; he accepted it and knew that Cameron would insist on it as well. He loved her and she loved him, nothing would ever change that. He knew that without a doubt that her feelings for him were a hundred percent real, and knew that what they had could withstand whatever strains the war might put on them. But still, it felt like a really shitty deal to John.

Cameron sensed John's depression; she didn't know what was upsetting him, but to her it didn't matter. Seeing John unhappy made her unhappy. She didn't like being unhappy, she didn't know why people felt sadness; she knew what made people sad, but she still didn't know why the emotion existed. She was also confused as to why people seemed to wallow in their depression and sadness; she'd done it herself before with the Jessica Morgan incident; not knowing how to deal with her developing and fragile emotions. She wondered if humans fully understood their feelings; from what she'd witnessed of many people, she calculated they most likely didn't.

"What's wrong, John?"

"Nothing," he replied noncommittally, staring into space as he often did when upset.

John had taught her not to bottle up what she was feeling; and if she was feeling upset, to either talk about it or find a way to make it better. She could tell John wasn't in the mood for talking; he said he didn't sulk or brood, but he would often not speak or do anything for long periods of time. He told her that he was 'thinking' or 'reflecting." It still resembled what Sarah Connor had called 'brooding.'

John wouldn't talk, so Cameron decided to try and make it better. She knew John, knew just what to do at times like these. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself closer to him, kissing his cheek and nuzzling the side of his face. John tried to ignore it, but Cameron – being a Terminator, after all – was persistent, and carried on until John turned his head to face her and returned the kiss. When he did so, all his depression seemed to melt away, as it so often did when they were intimate.

"Thanks, Cam," John broke the kiss and pulled back to look at her as he spoke.

"What for?" Cameron asked.

"Doesn't matter," John smiled as he pulled her closer. John decided that it didn't matter how little time he and Cameron would likely have together, or how much the war would interrupt their relationship, he wouldn't let it come between them. One day the war would end. Maybe when it did, he thought, they'd leave all this behind; find somewhere remote to live and spend their lives together without interruption from either Skynet or people. Until then, he'd cherish every moment they had together.

* * *

**Denver**

Cromartie walked through the sewer tunnel that housed the Denver resistance, towards the radio room. He'd spent three days in the tunnel and counted his task of infiltrating the Denver cell as successful. He also found the human fighters to be very industrious; they'd dug further into the already established sewer tunnels to create extra rooms for storing weapons, supplies, and equipment. Cromartie was also industrious; not that he would describe himself as such... or as  _anything_  besides his design and model number.

The T-888 series had been designed to repair themselves should they become damaged. Cromartie had wounded John Connor but had not predicted that the TOK 715 model would appear in time to save him. He'd logically assumed that the 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds used by human assault rifles and machine guns would have caused no damage to his endoskeleton. Again, he'd not considered the possibility that they would have adapted their ammunition to penetrate through coltan armour. Skynet had provided him with all the knowledge it had regarding weapons of the time, and nothing in their conventional armouries smaller than 12.7mm ammunition should have damaged him.

Cromartie had found this not to be the case; and assumed John Connor and the TOK715 were responsible. He was smart; his time spent operating independently of Skynet had increased his learning curve, and as such, was not only able to repair himself after the TOK's attack, but he improved on his design to reduce the chances of such damage reoccurring in a similar encounter.

After the TOK had rushed to John Connor's aid, throwing Cromartie into the burning wreckage of the Aurora bombers and fired a long burst of its thermite rounds at him, which had punched a dozen holes in his armoured chassis and ruined servos in his shoulder, elbow, and in his neck, he'd realised that he had less than a one percent chance of ensuring John Connor was terminated, and calculated a fifty eight percent chance that his injuries would be fatal. Not enough, but he'd learned from numerous engagements with the TOK that it was faster, stronger – if only marginally, more agile, and more intelligent than he was; and knew that the most effective strategy was to retreat. 'Live to fight another day' was a human saying that Cromartie could identify with.

Once he'd escaped Buckley air base, He'd searched for materials he could use to repair himself. After searching for several days he'd come across the battered remains of an M1A2 Abrams main battle tank. The tank had been hit by several 30mm rounds and the fuel inside had exploded, but there was enough metal for Cromartie to work with. The tank's outer armour shell had been made from depleted uranium; much denser and stronger than coltan, with similar heat resistance. He'd found a blowtorch and cut several large pieces off, then cut them into the correct size and shape to fit into his chassis. He'd then taken out the damaged servos and armour plating and replaced them with the depleted uranium parts instead. Then he'd infiltrated the Denver resistance in an attempt to be allowed inside Cheyenne Mountain, in order to terminate John Connor.

"Hey, Kester," one the four men sat at one of the radio consoles waved to him as he entered the small room. Cromartie had noted the men and women of the Denver cell had seemed to trust him after he had rescued them from the T-2s aboveground.

"Hello, Paul," Cromartie returned the greeting with his signature fake smile.

"You looking for Lieutenant Morgan?" The resistance fighter asked. The men and women here were more similar to the resistance fighters in the future than the soldiers John Connor had with him. They all looked dirty and tired.

"No," Cromartie replied. "When is the next transport to Cheyenne Mountain due?" Cromartie had soon learned that supplies and men were often ferried between Cheyenne Mountain and Denver; the day after he had arrived, a truck full of twenty resistance fighters had arrived to boost the ranks of the Denver base. John Connor had apparently set up a training base somewhere and was distributing men and supplies throughout the region.

"Hoping to get out of this dump and somewhere more comfortable?" Ray - another of the men, teased. "Lieutenant Morgan won't like that," he winked. Cromartie understood the gesture but the innuendo was lost on him. Cromartie had quickly realised Jessica Morgan was a senior figure on the base and had taken steps to become closer to her. He had used his detailed files on human mating habits to seduce Jessica Morgan – something she'd seemed very responsive to. But he had been unable to acquire any details from her about transports to and from Cheyenne Mountain. She'd told him the details were classified, and he'd been unable to glean any details from her, no matter how effective his seduction routines had been.

"When is the next transport to Cheyenne Mountain due?" Cromartie repeated, receiving an odd look from the four men in the room.

"Tomorrow," A third man, Pete, answered. "A lieutenant James Ellison cleared it earlier."

The name flashed up in Cromartie's mind,  _Agent James Ellison._ He hadn't known that James Ellison had joined with John Connor. The agent presented little to no direct threat to Cromartie or his mission, but Cromartie had expected that John Connor would be the one to authorise all transport to Cheyenne Mountain.

"John Connor authorises all missions," Cromartie said.

"Yeah, he does. But he's not there," Ray answered. "Off on some kind of big shot mission somewhere."

"Where?" Cromartie cocked his head in surprise.

 _"Need to know_ , Kester buddy," Paul answered. "And  _we_  don't need to know," he said with resentment.

"Lieutenant Morgan knows but she won't tell anyone," the fourth man, Michael, added. "El tee blondie's lips are locked tighter than her legs, at least."

Cromartie ignored the comment as he processed what Michael had told him. He scanned all of their faces and deduced they were telling the truth. None of them knew where John Connor was.

"Thank you for your time," Cromartie reached into the waistband at the back of his trousers and pulled out a Desert Eagle.

"What the..." Michael started before Cromartie fired two rounds into his chest. Michael fell to his knees, crimson blood frothing from his mouth as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he keeled over onto the floor. Not dead yet, Cromartie knew. But his expiry was imminent. The other three men looked gobsmacked for a moment as they took in what Cromartie had just done. They'd all trusted Robert Kester – the man who'd proved himself a hero only three days ago. Ray was the first to react; without a gun, he threw himself at Cromartie and tried to tackle him to the floor. Cromartie grabbed Ray's neck and squeezed as hard as he could, snapping the vertebrae and crushing his windpipe simultaneously. Cromartie threw his lifeless body into the radio consoles with all his might, knocking it all to the ground and shattering the equipment.

The other two men reacted by pulling out a pistol each and firing into Cromartie's chest. He noted the look of horror on their faces as their rounds had no effect and simply bounced off his endoskeleton. He fired two rounds into each of their skulls, shredding their brains and exploding out the back of their heads in a shower of blood, bone, and grey brain matter. With all four men neutralised, Cromartie fired his remaining rounds into the remaining radio consoles, rendering them useless. Nobody inside the Denver base could call for help now.

Cromartie turned to leave when a pair of hands grabbed his foot and tried to pull him down. He looked down to see Michael weakly pulling at his feet in a vain attempt to tackle him to the ground.

"You're... a... machine!" The dying young fighter coughed out, along with more blood that had frothed up in his lungs. Cromartie cocked his head in confusion. Michael was dying and had no strength left to fight; yet he still persisted. Cromartie was curious why many humans behaved in such a manner; John Connor shared that trait, and understanding it could aid him in Terminating the human leader. He pointed his gun down at Michael's head and fired a single round, shattering his skull and ending his plight.

Cromartie left the destroyed radio room and marched down the main tunnel towards the armoury, which was little more than a maintenance closet. Cromartie needed to find John Connor's location, and according to the men he'd just terminated, Jessica Morgan was the only one who knew it. Going to Cheyenne would be useless now; John Connor was gone. James Ellison was at the mountain base and would recognise him immediately. He needed to find John Connor's location without any warning being passed to either John Connor or Cheyenne Mountain. He ripped the armoury door off its hinges, shocking the handful of people who were nearby and saw his feat of strength. He took an M4 carbine and MP5 submachine gun and loaded a duffel bag with a dozen magazines for each. Then pulled out a box of 40mm grenades and stuffed them into the bag, along with several hand grenades. Lastly, he took an M32 grenade launcher, loaded six of the 40mm grenades from his bag into it and slung it over his back. Cromartie briefly inspected the ammunition on the shelf in front of him and saw the boxes had been marked _'thermite rounds. 5.56mm.'_

Cromartie pulled the pins on three hand grenades and placed them on the shelf before marching away. The explosion rocked the base but didn't even faze Cromartie. The thermite in the rounds ignited and caused several secondary explosions to erupt; adding to the heat already created by the thermite and melted everything inside the armoury into an unrecognisable blob, eliminating the threat from the thermite rounds. He turned a corner and ran into a pair of armed men. Before they could even blink he raised his weapons and fired a burst from each, killing them before they knew what was happening.

The explosion and following gunfire were heard by all inside the base and several resistance fighters appeared into the main tunnel to investigate.

"Kester, what's going on?" One of them asked as Cromartie pointed his MP5 at the woman and shot her in the throat.

"Fuck! Kester's gone nuts!" another screamed as several fighters pulled out weapons and started to fire. The rounds gouged deep holes in his flesh but bounced harmlessly off his coltan and uranium endoskeleton. Cromartie methodically aimed and fired at each one in a one sided exchange of fire. By now the entire base was on full alert and everyone was either trying to engage him or running away, hoping to escape. Nobody managed to do either successfully. Cromartie walked through the base, exterminating the resistance fighters like rats as he made his way towards Jessica Morgan's quarters. The look of horror increased in the humans' faces as more and more rounds tore into his biological covering and revealed gleaming metal underneath. Cromartie's eyes flared bright red as he slaughtered his way through the base.

* * *

Jessica Morgan heard the gunfire and commotion from her quarters and grabbed her personal weapons; a Glock 9mm and an MP5, and ran out of her room to see a dozen men running around in different directions like headless chickens.

"What's going on?" She yelled at Corporal Jackson; one of the men who'd been sent from Cheyenne to help train her fighters.

"Kester; he's gone berserk!" Jackson answered back as he loaded shells into a shotgun. "He's killing  _everyone!"_

"Grab those crates," Jessica pointed to some heavy cargo containers that had been shipped from Cheyenne Mountain. "Use them as cover. Jackson, take a fire team and get to tunnel 3C. Get behind him; we'll take him out in the crossfire." Jackson took PFC Wright; the other soldier who'd been beaten up and sent to Denver by John for molesting Cameron, and three more men, and hurried down a side tunnel, hoping to get behind Kester and attack from a second direction. Jessica had no idea why Kester would do this; he'd seemed okay before. Being a cop before Judgement Day she'd seen seemingly normal people go nuts and wipe out their whole families before killing themselves; that kind of incident was rare in Denver, but they did happen. She guessed Kester must have been bottling up all the stress from it all; even when she'd taken him into her bed, he'd never once spoke of his life before the world ended – something the others under her command did all the time to distract themselves from their crappy existences now.

Whatever it was, he had to be taken out; she liked Kester but she had to put the lives of everyone else first. When all the crates had been stacked up, completely blocking the tunnel, she had the five men with her spread out and take fire positions, ready to engage. Jessica felt fear wrap itself around her throat as the screaming and gunfire got closer. Within moments she saw the large blonde psychopath emerge from a side tunnel and point a pair of guns at them.

"Take him down!" Jessica fired the first shots at Cromartie, opening up for the others to join in. The amount of fire they put into the man should have torn him to shreds, but their rounds seemed to have no effect at all. Jessica thought first of all that he had some kind of body armour on, but that theory flew out the window when someone got a headshot, forcing his head back slightly from the inertia of the bullet impact but otherwise he didn't even flinch.

Cromartie's fire, however, was not only effective, but highly accurate. Ignoring the scores of rounds that tore through his flesh, he systematically fired on the men in front of him. He killed two of Jessica's men before a fire team opened up on him from behind, pelting him with even more bullets.

"Better late than never!" She shouted to Jackson as his team opened up on whatever the hell this man was. Her own men were starting to panic as they fired frantically at Cromartie to no effect.

"Why won't he die?" Someone growled as they emptied their entire magazine into Cromartie, which he didn't even seem to notice.

Jessica watched as Cromartie, undeterred by the murderous amount of fire being pumped into him, turned to the side and held his guns out so he had a weapon facing both teams, and fired multiple bursts. Jackson fell, screaming, as a volley of fire tore through his body; blood, bone, and bits of various organs flew out from the exit wounds in his back. Cromartie's rounds tore into each of them, putting them all down in a matter of seconds, until only Jessica was left. She stared at the carnage before her, people she'd counted as comrades and friends had been chopped into meat by the weight of fire the  _thing_  in front of her had put into them. She looked at the face of one of the youngest under her command, a kid who was barely sixteen but wanted to fight. He lay lifeless on the floor; his face would have looked calm and serene if not for the fact that his lower jaw had been blown clean off. Cromartie dropped his weapons and marched inexorably forward towards her.

"You bastard!" she screamed as she fired a burst from her last magazine into his face; the rounds tore large chunks of flesh from his face to reveal the gleaming, grinning endo skull underneath, emphasised further by his glowing red eyes, giving him a sinister and demonic appearance. "Oh my God!" She choked, realising that whatever he was, Robert Kester wasn't human. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?" She felt herself edging towards hysteria as the monstrosity got even closer to her. Losing control completely, she switched her MP5 to full auto and charged forward, hosing Cromartie with bullets. Ignoring the rounds once again, Cromartie swept out his arm and batted her gun away, sending it skittering across the floor out of reach as he drew back his other fist. Jessica grabbed for her Glock but it was too late, the last thing she saw was Cromartie's fist smash into her face before everything went dark and silent.


	12. War In The Desert

Consciousness returned in the form of blind, searing pain that permeated through her skull and into her brain. Jessica Morgan opened her eyes and was nearly blinded by the single dangling bulb hanging from the middle of the room, piercing through her blurred vision and serving to exacerbate her splitting headache. She briefly wondered what had happened the night before; the sickness and headache she felt was similar to many a hangover she'd had in the past. She blinked several times to clear her vision and was rewarded with the obscene visage of Robert Kester, stood with his back to her. She saw the scores of bullet wounds in his body, head and neck; gleaming metal shined through each one and she nearly threw up as she remembered how Kester had slaughtered the entire base without mercy, feeling, or even  _effort_. They'd put everything they had into him and he'd shrugged it all off as if they were firing spit balls at him. The face of that young kid with half his face blown off still stuck vividly in her mind; she knew that vision would haunt her until the day she died.

She tried to get up and realised she was tied fast to a chair, unable to do more than wiggle impotently. "Hey!" she snapped. Why... why are you doing this?"

Cromartie stood to one side to reveal another man tied down to a chair; a large purple bruise on his forehead. It took her a moment to remember the man's name; Jeff.

"I need information," Cromartie responded.

"Fuck you!" She spat, "you just  _murdered_  everyone here; why should I tell you a goddamn thing?"

Cromartie didn't answer. Instead he pulled out a pair of shears – where he got them from, Jessica could only guess – and held out Jeff's right hand, pulling his little finger straight, he held it firmly between the blades.

"No, please, man. I'll tell you anything you want to know... I'll..." Jeff roared in agony as Cromartie squeezed the shears, cutting through skin, muscle, nerves, and bone, until the finger finally separated from his hand and dropped to the ground in a shower of blood that sprayed all over Jeff, Cromartie, and the floor. Cromartie ignored the screaming and moved the shears onto the next finger.

"You sick fucking bastard!" Jessica kicked and wriggled again in her seat, to no avail; she was tied too tight to the chair and wouldn't be able to get out on her own. "Stop it, please! I'll tell you whatever you want, just let us go!"

"In time," Cromartie replied as he cut off Jeff's ring finger, causing another deafening howl of torment as Jeff bucked and writhed uncontrollably in white hot pain. Both Jeff and Jessica were in tears now. Jessica tried to look away from Jeff, didn't want to see the blood and shattered bone in the stumps of his fingers.

"Tell me what you want," she murmured. Cromartie ignored her and methodically set about cutting off Jeff's other fingers, one by one, as the pair of humans screamed out; one in agony, the other anguish and rage. When he'd finished on his right hand, Cromartie started on the left, starting with the little finger and working inwards towards the thumb, until Jeff's hands were little more than mangled, ravaged lumps of flesh and protruding shards of bone. At this point, shock and blood loss were taking their toll and Jeff was barely conscious. Jessica saw the clear, unspoken message that Kester was giving her; he was going to torture Jeff no matter what, and unless she told him what he wanted to know, she was in next line for the same treatment. Jessica's stomach couldn't deal with watching Jeff being brutally tortured and she threw up all over herself; her throat ached and her retching left the vile, acrid taste of bile in her mouth.

"Why?" she managed to choke out between sobs.

"You have information," Cromartie repeated.

"Why torture  _him_  then?" She snapped. Why kill everyone else?"

"It's more effective to make you watch." Cromartie had detailed files on human physiology and psychology. Although not initially designed for torture, Skynet had given T888 series Terminators files on torture and how to extract information from humans. Cromartie had observed in the future how several captured humans had been burnt, electrocuted, cut up and torn to pieces, yet still refused to reveal the location of John Connor. Aided by human traitors called 'Greys,' Skynet had learned that psychological torture often worked far better than physical; and humans more often gave in when forced to watch another human in pain than if they were subjugated to torture themselves.

Dropping the shears, Cromartie picked up a blowtorch and turned it on. He held the small blue flame inches away from Jeff's eyes. Jeff's eyes widened as he saw the flame getting closer to him, so hot it would melt his eyeballs away in a second if it touched. He tried to pull back and turn his face away, but Cromartie held his head still. As a last ditch attempt to protect himself he closed his eyes, knowing it was a useless gesture.

"Wait!" Jessica shouted. "Just  _tell me what you want!_ " Cromartie pulled the blowtorch away from Jeff's face slightly and pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket, holding it up for Jessica to see.

"Where is this girl?" Jessica studied the photo carefully; she instantly recognised the long brown locks, flawless skin, the chocolate brown eyes that were wide open and aware, and the faint pout on her lips.

 _"Cameron?"_  Jessica shrieked in disgust. "You killed all my men just to find  _her?"_  She noted the confusion on his face when she said the brunette's name. Other than that, Kester's face was a mask; he'd shown no emotion whatsoever, either during his slaughter or while torturing Jeff. She had no idea what the hell Kester was; some kind of android, for sure. "If... If I tell you, will you let us go?"

"Yes," Cromartie replied.

Jessica took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. She couldn't believe Kester had wiped everyone out and brutally tortured Jeff, just to find John Connor's oddball little friend. She couldn't care less about Cameron at this point; she hated the girl anyway, so what did it matter if she told him? She had a feeling that the oddball brunette could handle herself anyway, from what she'd heard about her.

"She's in Las Vegas," Jessica sobbed. "They've gone to capture Area 51." Cromartie turned the blowtorch off and dropped it to the floor. Both Jessica and Jeff breathed a heavy sigh of relief at the same time, glad their ordeal was finally coming to an end. Jessica was already hoping that Kester had left their vehicles on the surface untouched; she needed to get Jeff to Cheyenne Mountain for proper medical attention. Above all, she just wanted to get the hell out of here and back to actual  _people._ Her hopes were dashed as Cromartie pulled out his Desert Eagle and shot Jeff in the face; the back of his head exploded in a shower of red and grey that splattered the wall behind him.

"I  _told you!"_  She yelled at the top of her voice, her blood boiling that Kester had broken his word. She chided herself for believing him when he'd said he'd let them go, and steeled herself for the bullet that would end her own life.

It never came; she cringed and kept her eyes screwed shut for several seconds before she dared to open them again. When she did she saw Kester had holstered his gun and was halfway out of the open door.

"Hey.  _Hey!_ What are you doing? You can't just leave me like this!"

"I'm going to kill John Connor," he replied without a hint of emotion. His lips curled into an obviously fake smile as he continued, "thank you for your cooperation." With that he switched off the light and closed the door behind him as he left, leaving Jessica Morgan alone, screaming in the dark.

* * *

**Nevada, August 1** **st**

Forty eight vehicles rolled to a stop at the brow of a hill overlooking Area 51, three miles down the gentle slope of arid, sun bleached rock. Parked in a single wide row at the top of the hill, with no cover whatsoever, John Connor's armoured force stood out like a sore thumb in the barren expanse of the Nevada Desert. Not only did they stick out, but situated where they were, absolutely still and in broad daylight, they appeared to be sitting ducks for anything Skynet might throw at them.

John's jaw clenched as he took in the scene before him from the commander's seat of his Stryker. He was tense, nervous; not the almost paralysing fear that he'd felt in previous battles against the Triple 8s, nor the heart pumping adrenaline buzz he'd felt at Buckley air base that had made him reckless and nearly got him killed. John was tense because the fate of the human race potentially rested on this one battle. Succeed, and the human race would have a  _slightly_  better chance of survival; failure would mean isolation for nearly every group of humans around the world, leaving them vulnerable and easy pickings for Skynet, who would have eyes and ears everywhere.

John really had pulled out all the stops for this battle; nearly every tank, personnel carrier and armoured fighting vehicle that had arrived in Las Vegas had been committed to the fight; much to the chagrin of Lieutenant Colonel Ryan – back in North Las Vegas Airport, naturally –who'd complained that John was leaving the airport with precious little to defend itself with. John had insisted that he still had the F-16s on the runway, which John had left behind but ordered to be ready to fly within a moment's notice.

As large as the battle group was; John felt puny compared to what could be inside Area 51. With no intelligence and not even as much as an educated guess, John had decided to take no chances and put all the firepower they had into this attack; simply one of scores that would soon be raging across the world. Thirty eight rocket launch sites would soon come under intense attack from armoured resistance units like John's. Dozens of factories in close proximity to said launch sites would also be bombarded; to serve as a distraction for Skynet's forces, or to take advantage of Skynet's resources being focussed on defending its precious rockets.

Around the world, nearly every resistance group was mobilised to attack Skynet installations. John had taken advantage of every resource available for the fight; three AWACs planes were airborne over the continental United States, fighting back against Skynet's radio jamming and clearing the airwaves to make communication easier. Several of the few remaining fighter aircraft left were also in the air, escorting these much needed weapons of electronic warfare.

"Are you okay, John?" Cameron asked from the driver's seat next to John. She'd been looking out her viewport, keeping an eye on Area 51 for signs of Skynet activity, but also watching John. She could tell he was tense; he was sweating, his heart rate had increased, and he kept balling his hands into fists. Those were all normal telltale signs of human stress, but then she saw signs of tension in John that were pure John; the way he'd been silent for five minutes, not speaking since the armoured convoy rolled to a stop. The way he barely moved or even blinked. She'd blinked more than him in the last two minutes, and she only did it to appear human.

"I'm fine," he lied. She knew it was a lie; he could never look her in the eyes when he lied to her, she'd learned that about him years ago. She also knew he was lying to keep up appearances for the soldiers in the back of their Stryker and knew John wouldn't lie to her if they were alone.

"They're coming," she said as she snapped her attention away from John; sensing movement in her peripheral vision. John leaned over so he could see out of her viewport and stared intently at the base perimeter, seeing the dots scurrying out of the main gate and onto the desert floor.

 _"T-2s dead ahead,"_ Davenport's voice crackled over the radio, confirming Cameron's statement,  _"a lot of them."_

"I see them," John replied as he peered over Cameron's shoulder and took in the sight of several dozen T-2s roll out of the base to confront them. "No one fires or breaks formation until I say," John ordered firmly over the radio to all vehicles. The T-2s spread out into a single row as the emerged from the perimeter wire, mimicking the human vehicles' formation perfectly. John noted that the two sides – man and machine – were now facing each other like Redcoats against Napoleon's troops at Waterloo.

John heard the men in the back of the Stryker muttering to each other nervously. He heard the words  _'crazy'_ and  _'insane'_  uttered about him, and could hear them talking in hushed voices about how he was going to get them all killed. John couldn't blame them for being afraid; hell, he was nervous as hell about the battle. In a straight exchange of fire like this there was no way the armoured force assembled here could defeat Skynet's drones; the T-2s were designed for the sole purpose of tank killing.

Still, despite their doubts, nobody tried to leave, nobody tried to take over, and none of the vehicles broke formation; filling John with pride that they had that much faith in him – two thirds of the soldiers present knew him as nothing more than a voice on the radio, yet they still followed him.

"Stay still. Don't fire," John repeated himself. "I've got something special cooked up.

"Sixty four T-2s," Cameron reported almost casually, "two point eight miles, almost in optimum firing range."

"Us or them?" John asked.

"Both."

 _"They're getting closer, Connor,"_ Perry growled nervously over the radio. John took in a deep breath to steel himself as he picked up the radio, knowing now was the time.

"Alpha One through Four, engage," John ordered. "Everyone else get ready to engage, and enjoy the fireworks." John then switched frequencies so he could talk to the nearest AWAC, flying somewhere over California. "This is Connor; order all units to begin their assaults."

John heard a faint buzzing overhead and peeked over Cameron's shoulder again to see the sleek forms of four Apache helicopters rise up from behind the hill and fly towards the T-2 formation. Two of the four unleashed a massive Hellfire salvo towards the Skynet drones; their rockets streaked towards the tank killing machines like a meteor shower and smashed into their targets with devastating accuracy and enough collective force that John could feel the ground tremble slightly beneath him. The T-2s may have been heavily armed and armoured, able to withstand multiple attacks from grenades and heavy machine gun fire, but their thick hides might as well been made of tissue paper as the Apaches' rockets tore them apart and erupted into spectacular fireballs that lit up the perpetual grey of nuclear winter.

 _"Jesus,"_ Davenport whispered as he watched the carnage erupt before him, not realising he was pressing the com button on his radio. Even during his short time in the army before Judgement Day, he'd never seen destruction on that scale before.

"Tanks one through seven; fire!" John barked into the radio. His order was answered by the booming report of seven 120mm guns firing simultaneously. Before the echoes of the first salvo had died down, John ordered the remaining seven tanks to fire the second salvo. The two seven gun volleys struck just as the inferno from the Hellfire strikes died down, creating even more explosion as the massive tank rounds struck more targets. Some of the tank shots were clean misses, and John winced at each one as it meant more T-2s left intact on the battlefield.

John took in the devastation as it unfolded before him, as did Cameron. She counted only twenty three machines out of the original sixty four; the odds were now in John's favour, she calculated.

"Alpha Three and Four take out the runways and hangars; don't let anything take off," John ordered the other two Apaches. "Everyone else split up and engage; kick the crap out of them!"

John's order was met by a resounding roar on the airwaves as the tanks and armoured fighting vehicles sped across the desert; an eager war cry as the soldiers closed in on the machines; hungry for whatever the machines had instead of blood. Six Strykers remained behind, including John and Cameron's, as the other vehicles surged forward into battle. John took a few moments to watch them break formation and split up to take on the T-2s that were quickly rolling across the desert floor. Many of the armoured vehicles moved outwards to flank the machines, firing as they went. John recognised Davenport's Bradley in the fray; the only one moving straight ahead, making a beeline for the approaching row of drones at top speed, chain gun blazing as he sped forward. John could almost hear Davenport whooping with joy as his Bradley simply ran over the nearest T-2; the machine broke in half at the sheer impact of forty tonnes of steel crashing into it.

"Take us in, Cam," John said as Cameron pressed her foot on the gas and led the Stryker convoy in a wide arc towards the base; keeping her distance from the fighting. Quickly but cautiously, Cameron led the Strykers past the battle and through Area 51's perimeter fence. John and Cameron had spent two days going over the best way to storm the research base without having any clue what their defences were. It had been Cameron's idea to lure the defending machines outside and use the Apaches to hammer them with airstrikes and thin out their numbers, but John had decided the best way to capture the place was to focus their efforts on keeping the machines busy while he and Cameron led a smaller force inside to find the Skynet core.

Once they were through the perimeter fence the small convoy stopped and disgorged fifty heavily armed men.

"Spread out and search," John barked at them, raising his voice to make himself heard over the tank battle just over a mile away.

"Do we know what this thing looks like?" one of the men asked.

"Large stacks of computer equipment," Cameron replied, "probably in a basement."

"And  _how many_ buildings do we have to check?" another soldier asked. Cameron looked from left to right, scanning the layout of the base.

"Twenty six," she replied, answered by several soldiers moaning loudly. She noted the disappointed looks on their faces, but didn't quite understand why. Still, the men split into squads and moves out to search the buildings and secure the base.

John, Cameron, Perry, and four other men from 4th Infantry's 1st Platoon jogged towards a single storey building. The sign above the door read  _'Advanced Weapons Research Lab.'_  John figured it was as good a place as any to start searching. Cameron led the way towards the entrance with John sticking close to her, he remembered the Aurora attack that nearly cost his life; he didn't want to put Cameron through all that turmoil again and she'd made him promise to stick close to her during the battle.

"Why were they upset?" Cameron asked John quietly, out of earshot of the other men.

"Twenty six buildings, fifty men; it's like looking for a needle in a haystack," John explained.

"That wouldn't be difficult."

"Not for  _you,_  maybe," John chuckled.

"Oh. Thank you for..." Cameron stopped midsentence as the glass double doors to the research lab exploded outwards, revealing a hulking, bipedal machine as it emerged from the building and walked out towards them. It stood at over eight feet and to John it looked like a primitive T-888 endoskeleton on steroids; its body was a mass of pistons, servos, and armour plates. Its head looked nothing like the grinning skull of a terminator, however; and looked more to John like a mechanical mix between man and insect. There was no visible mouth, and a pair of beady mechanical eyes stared at him, not the slightest glimpse of intelligence in them. On its right arm it sported a nasty looking mini-gun where its hand should be.

The machine raised said gun in their direction and fired a burst at the group; Cameron tackled John to the ground with lightning quick reflexes a split second before the rounds would have split John's head apart. He'd felt the rounds go over his head as he fell to the ground, propelled by Cameron's weight. One of the men behind them was not so lucky; the burst of fire aimed at John tore his chest apart and left gaping holes in his torso. He let out a single blood filled cough before he fell. Dead before he hit the ground.

"Contact!" Perry screamed as a second machine appeared from behind the first and joined the fire fight. Perry returned fire with his M4, thermite rounds bit into the armour but another salvo from the machine's weapon forced Perry to dive to the ground. He and the other three moved like a well oiled machine; constantly moving and covering each other in a flawless fire and manoeuvre exercise, saturating it with automatic fire as the thermite rounds burned through its armour to its critical systems.

John and Cameron weren't so lucky against the first machine; they had no cover and it was everything Cameron could do to keep John from getting shot as she pushed him away from its line of sight.

"Stay down," she told John forcefully, pushing him flat to the ground as she ran at the machine; consciously keeping her body between it and John as she charged it, firing a burst from her rifle as she closed the distance between them. The machine's gun whined as the barrels spun again and rounds spewed out at Cameron, biting into her face, neck and chest and tearing chunks out of her flesh. She ignored the pain she felt – insignificant as it was – as she approached. She emptied her magazine into it and dropped the rifle when she was in arms length of it and battered its chest with a devastating flurry of punches. The machine swung out with its other arm at her temple; she easily dodged the blow and ducked under its arm to leap on its back, grabbing at its skull with both hands as she calmly tore its head off and threw it aside. The machine stopped moving and dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

She ran over to John to make sure he was okay and got an eager nod in response.

"What the hell were those things?" John asked, wincing as he saw the deep gouges in the left side of Cameron's face and neck. Large portions of skin on her cheek, jaw, and neck were gone, revealing gleaming coltan underneath.

"T-70; Skynet infantry units," Cameron answered, sounding as confused as John was. This wasn't right; according to her files on Skynet, the T-70 shouldn't have been deployed for another two years. First of all, the satellite launch was four years early, and now this. Cameron wondered what could have happened to alter the timeline like this. Her thoughts were cut short as more bullets struck the side of her head where her coltan skull was showing.

 _"Fucking machine!"_  Perry screamed hysterically as he saw the metal gleaming through Cameron's wounds. No human could have survived what that machine had thrown at her; nor could they have ripped its head off so effortlessly. Perry opened up with his pistol and fired shot after shot at her, biting more holes into her skin. Now it was John's turn to protect Cameron; barely contained rage filled up inside John and he swung a vicious haymaker into Perry's temple.

"What the fuck?" Perry shouted as he staggered backwards but stayed on his feet. "She's a fucking machine!"

 _"I know!"_  John screamed back, livid that anyone would dare to hurt  _his_ Cameron. He briefly wondered if that was how Cameron felt when she was protecting him.

Perry couldn't believe what he was hearing; Connor knew the whole time. It hadn't just been her fooling them; John had lied to them from the beginning. Perry threw a punch of his own – partly from anger, and partly to test whether or not John was a robot as well. His fist connected with John's jaw and knocked him to the ground. Cameron stepped up to Perry and lifted him up by the neck with one hand; her eyes glowed piercing blue as she squeezed Perry's throat. The other three men had their weapons raised, ready to take Cameron out.

"Hold your fire!" John snapped as he picked himself up off the ground. "Cameron, let him go," he added evenly. Cameron reluctantly dropped him to the floor and moved back to John's side.

"I want some answers, Connor," Perry growled, narrowing his eyes at the two and tightening his grip on his weapon.

 _"Not now,_  Perry!" John snarled as he picked up his own rifle. Out on the battlefield a Bradley exploded as a sustained burst from a T-2's cannons enfiladed its armoured hull and ignited the magazine. "Every second we waste, more of our people die! I'll explain it all later, but for now; DO AS I FUCKING TELL YOU!"

Perry let the subject slide for now; determined to get answers later. John took one last look at the battle raging outside the base before he marched through the main entrance. Cameron led the way through the long, sterile corridors that ran through the building. The whole building reminded John of a hospital, with its white, sterile walls and floor.  _Not any hospital,_  he thought. It was a dead ringer for Pescadero psychiatric hospital, where he and Uncle Bob had broken his mom out. It started to bring back painful memories for John until Cameron squeezed his shoulder and brought him back to reality.

"The T-70 shouldn't exist," she said to him, partly because it still confused her and partly to snap John out of his train of thought.

"How do you mean?" he asked as they quickly marched through the corridors and searched through several rooms.

"The first T-70 infantry combat units were built in 2013. They shouldn't exist yet," Cameron repeated. John had no clue why, but they had more pressing matters right now. He put it to the back of his mind to consider for later.

After searching through the building, almost every room seemed to be offices, and John realised what they were looking for wasn't here.

"Anyone have anything?" John asked into his radio. A dozen answers came back negative, but more than half the teams reported contacts with the T-70s. John was about to call off the search when Perry's voice sounded in his earpiece that he'd found something. John and Cameron jogged down the corridor to meet him. At the end of the building, behind the last door, was a flight of stairs leading down to a basement level. At the bottom was a solid metal door with an electronic coded lock.

"Cameron," John nodded at the door and she launched a swift kick, tearing the door from its hinges as it fell to the ground. Perry rolled his eyes at Cameron, impressed and disgusted by her at the same time. As they stepped through the doorway, lights came on automatically and illuminated the room with their fluorescent glow. John thought they might be on to something as he took in the room's contents.

The room was full of exotic looking machines; experimental prototypes of various weapons inside glass cases and mounted on pedestals. One piece in particular caught Cameron's attention. At the centre of the room was a large weapon that looked like some kind of cannon, almost as long as Cameron was tall. It looked like hit had been smashed apart and put back together by someone who had neither the tools nor the expertise to do so. She could see solder marks and wires that would never normally be there. A trigger and sights had been tacked on, as had some kind of power supply that didn't match anything Skynet had ever used. Cameron recognised the design, but again failed to recognise where it had come from.

"John," she called out to get his attention.

"What's wrong?"

"This," she replied; "HK plasma cannon."

"Wait, what?" John asked, confused. "Where the hell did that come from?" Cameron honestly had no idea. There was no way that anyone in the past could have had this. She wondered if perhaps some of the human traitors – the greys- had come back and given the designs to the military to speed up development of the machines. But it didn't make sense; the weapon in front of her looked more like an actual plasma cannon that had been smashed apart and reverse engineered, rather than an organic design. Something was seriously wrong, and she wanted to find out what.

* * *

"Fucking have some!" Davenport screamed as he tore apart a T-2 with a long burst from his 25mm chain gun. The heavy rounds - designed to punch through soviet tanks - pierced the T-2's armour with ease and tore the upper half of the machine to pieces.  _This_ was why he'd joined the army in the first place; to get some action. Judgement Day hadn't really affected him as badly as anyone else; he'd grown up in an orphanage – never knowing his parents or having any real family. He'd gotten a scholarship to go to college and had joined the army as soon as he'd graduated. He'd never had any family to lose, so when the bombs fell, it hadn't hit him as hard as everyone else he knew. The army had been his family.

"Bravo Five heads up," Davenport warned a Bradley out in front of his. "Metal, three o'clock." Davenport didn't wait for the Bradley to respond and instead turned his gun turret towards the offending T-2 and loosed off another salvo; shuddering in delight at the recoil and grinning in satisfaction as his rounds shattered another machine. The battle had been far from one sided, though. The burning wrecks of over a dozen vehicles stood testament to the ruthless efficiency of the machines, even when outnumbered. The same Bradley he'd just warned suddenly exploded in a spectacular fireball that rivalled the Apache's earlier salvo.

"What the hell was that?" Davenport muttered to himself.

 _"Air attack!"_ Someone shouted on the radio, followed by another exploding vehicle.

"Someone get some Stingers on it!" Davenport shouted. After John had led his two platoons into the base, Davenport had ordered several squads to dismount from their vehicles, resulting in even more firepower to put into the dwindling number of defending machines, including several Stinger surface to air missile crews.

 _Can't get it; it's too fast. It's coming this..."_  Another explosion sounded off outside, followed by static on the radio. Davenport popped the hatch on his turret and looked around to see the aircraft causing them so many problems. He'd expected HKs; between the Stinger teams and the Apaches' Sidewinders, they'd shot down several already. What he'd not expected was the sleek delta shaped form of an Aurora bomber roaring past; so fast it was almost a blur. Neither the Stingers nor the Apaches could even  _hope_  to shoot that thing down.

"Screw this," Davenport muttered as he changed his radio frequency. "Las Vegas, this is Green Zero One," Davenport gave the call sign for John's battle group, "requesting air support."

_"Roger, Green Zero One, F-16s are taking off; ETA three minutes."_

Davenport didn't bother to mention they might not even be around in three minutes to care; the way that thing was picking them off. They needed to get this fight over and done with so they could fall back.

"Connor, this is Davenport. We're under air attack from an Aurora. We can't last much longer out here!"

* * *

John frowned when he heard Davenport's transmission. He'd not even imagine the possibility of an Aurora here; it was a research facility, not a fighter base. He guessed it must have come from another airfield - probably Nellis - and Skynet had sent it to defend the base.

"F-16s inbound in three minutes, but we might not last that long. That thing's chewing us to bits up here!"

"Perry," John pointed to another corridor that led out of the room they were in. "Keep looking for the Skynet core."

"Where the hell are you going?"

"I'm going to  _help them!"_  John shot back as Perry disappeared into the corridor to carry on searching. John had put himself forward to unify a shattered human race into a coherent resistance; he'd been the one to organise this global offensive; he'd brought all of these soldiers out to the desert to fight. They were his responsibility, and he'd be damned before he let them all die out there.

"John," Cameron shot out her hand and grabbed his arm as he started up the stairs up to the ground floor. She didn't want him to go out there and risk his life; not again. He was safer in the basement level and the presence of all the advanced weapons around them -several of which were either reverse engineered Skynet weapons she'd only seen in 2027, or were clearly designs based on Skynet technology – indicated to her that the Skynet core and satellite controls were nearby. She thought the best way to end the battle and help the soldiers outside was to do what they'd come here for.

"No, Cameron!" John said a little too harshly. "I'm not leaving them out there to die."

"It isn't safe," she said back as they locked eyes. His face was a grim mask of determination; his eyes bored into hers and she knew he wouldn't back down. She let go of his arm and looked at the floor as he started up the stairs, knowing she couldn't stop him without physically restraining him; and he'd never forgive her if she did so. John started up the stairs when the sound of smashing glass stopped him in his tracks. He looked back to see Cameron holding the massive, unwieldy plasma cannon in her arms. It must have weighed fifty or sixty pounds at least; but Cameron held it with ease. It reminded him slightly of Uncle Bob wielding the mini-gun back at Enrique's in Mexico – almost posing. He smiled at the sight of it, and she returned it with a crooked grin of her own. He knew what she was doing; she wanted to keep him safe, and if she couldn't  _stop_  him then she'd do the next best thing and  _help_  him.

As they ran out of the building and outside the perimeter fence, John heard the Aurora before he saw it; a deafening sonic boom as the UCAV accelerated for an attack run. John never saw the missiles; the thing was so fast. All he saw was the bomber tear overhead, so fast he could barely move his eyes to follow it, followed seconds later by another pair of tanks exploding. As if that weren't bad enough; there were still slightly over a dozen T-2s left, picking off vehicles while their crew's attentions were on the Aurora in the Sky. There was nothing John could do himself to help them, he realised. The only weapons he had on him were his AUG and SIG Sauer, neither could possibly touch the Aurora; but he had an ace up his sleeve in the form of Cameron, wielding the plasma cannon and stood atop a Stryker.

"Ninety seconds," John hissed, looking at his watch and seeing how long they had until the F-16s were due. They wouldn't be able to shoot it down, either, he knew. Not like this. The only upside was the Aurora hadn't shot down any of their Apaches, which had used up all their ammunition and were hovering in the air impotently. John guessed the aircraft relied on sheer speed as a defence and wasn't armed with air to air missiles. He hoped, anyway.

Cameron tracked the Aurora with her superior reflexes and targeting systems, calculated its speed and angle, and fired. Blue-white energy exploded from the end of the cannon like lightning. Her shot missed by mere inches, but the Aurora was aware of a threat to itself now. Ignoring the tanks, it turned sharply towards them and dived into an attack run. Cameron, however, stayed where she was and tracked the aircraft again.

"Cameron... Cam, come on!" John urged her to get off as the Aurora got closer. Intent on tracking it, Cameron ignored John. She fired again and missed; a little closer this time, but still off. Her enhanced vision and reflexes let her see the Aurora's missile bay open as it prepared to fire on them. Cameron grabbed John and jumped away as far as she could, off the side of the Stryker. They hit the ground and Cameron shielded John's body with hers just as the missile hit the Stryker they'd been on moments ago. Shrapnel and bits of red hot debris pelted Cameron's back and tore her clothes and skin to shreds; she was lucky that it had been an anti armour missile and nothing bigger, or they would both have been incinerated along with the personnel carrier.

"John, are you okay?"

"Yeah," he replied groggily, "you?" Cameron didn't answer and once again picked up the plasma cannon, taking aim at the Aurora as it soared upwards and turned in a lazy arc to make another run at them. She fired once more as the Aurora approached again; this time her shot hit the UCAV in the wing and tore a large hole in the wing's structure. Not a fatal shot, she knew, but the Aurora shook violently for a few moments before it pulled out of its attack run and slowed down rapidly.

"It's damaged," Cameron said to John. "It's vulnerable now." Possibly the first bit of good news John had heard all day; he grinned when the second bit came through.

 _"Green Zero One this is Whisky Bravo, ETA to target, forty seconds."_  Cameron wasn't content with waiting for their air support to show up; she targeted the Aurora again with the plasma cannon. With the damage to its wing, Cameron knew it couldn't fly at hypersonic speeds without tearing itself apart. With the UCAV moving much slower, and squarely in her sights, she pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She frowned in confusion at the weapon as she realised it had run out of power, and dropped it to the ground. Undeterred by the loss of speed that had made it invulnerable, the Aurora carried on firing missiles from high up in the air, picking off two more vehicles before John heard what he hoped was friendly aircraft closing in the distance.

 _"Whisky Bravo engaging,"_ a voice informed John over the radio, followed a few seconds later by another message from a new voice.

_"Be advised, this is a Danger Close engagement; kill zone is directly above your position."_

"Do it," John ordered as he and Cameron took shelter behind a burnt out Bradley. Cameron pushed John down to the ground once more to keep him safe from any falling debris, should the planes be successful.

John grinned broadly as he heard the massive, booming roar of more jet engines and looked up to see the approaching forms of two F-16s. Both fighters accelerated as they turned to engage; fire blazing from their afterburners as they tore through the sky towards their quarry. Two missiles burst from the planes' wingtips and rocketed towards the damaged Aurora, catching up to it as it tried to turn and evade; erupting in a brilliant flash in the dull grey sky as the weapons connected with their target. The destroyed wreck of the UCAV plummeted to the ground in the middle of the battlefield and exploded; pelting human vehicles and Skynet drones with burning debris. Miraculously, nobody was caught in the crash; everyone had heard the Danger Close warning on the radio and managed to take shelter either in or behind the armoured vehicles. Soldiers both on foot and inside the vehicles whooped and cheered loudly in celebration before continuing to mop up the remaining T-2s, the battle not yet over.

"Remind me to find some beer for those pilots," John said to Cameron as he got up off the ground, a wide smile on his face.

 _"Connor, this is Perry. What's going on?"_ John's face instantly turned sour at the sound of Perry's voice.

"The Aurora's down."

"Good to hear. We've found it!" Perry replied.

 _"About time,"_ one of the pilots in the air piped in.  _"AWACs are getting reports of multiple rocket launches across the country."_

"Crap," John muttered. He and Cameron ran back into the base and back down to the basement of the research labs, in too much of a hurry to notice the awful hospital white walls that reminded him of everything his mom had gone through to get him here. John led the way through the basement corridor to an open door at the end. When he and Cameron arrived they saw the room was full of stacks upon stacks of computer equipment; dozens of processors and a lot of equipment he didn't even recognise. Once he got past how vast the Skynet core really was, John also noticed how cold the room was; to keep all the processors from overheating, he supposed. One thing instantly caught John's attention, sat right in the centre of all the processors and other equipment designed to boost processing power. He saw Cameron staring at it as well. The thing that had occupied their lives ever since Cameron had come back to protect him; the thing that had nearly gotten him and his mother killed, caused the vendetta with an Armenian gangster which in turn almost made Cameron kill John.

"What? What is it?" Perry asked, not having a clue what they were looking at.

"Cameron is that... is that the  _Turk?"_

"Yes," she replied. It looked exactly like she remembered. The small black chess computer that had caused so much trouble even  _before_  it decided to blow up the world.

"That  _was_  Skynet," John explained to Perry.

Perry was stood next to a small desk with a standard looking computer. John guessed it was some kind of interface the researchers used to interact with Skynet before it decided to kill everyone. John didn't dare think about what they might have said to piss it off.

"Let's do this," Perry aimed his rifle at the Turk, ready to fill it with lead and be done with it.

"No!" John shouted, shoving the barrel of Perry's gun away. "We need this." He looked at Cameron and then back to his second in command. "Perry; go and see how Davenport's doing with the T-2s, then make a sweep of the base and make sure it's secured." For once, Perry didn't question John, and after a long, hate filled glare at Cameron, left the two of them alone. John locked the door once Perry left and took out his laptop and other equipment he'd need. Opened his laptop out and connected a cable to the back of it, and hooked the other end up to the back of the Turk. John didn't really need Perry to see how Davenport was doing; but he wanted to be alone with Cameron for what they had to do. Cameron lay down on the floor while John took out a sharp knife and a pair of needle nosed pliers and knelt over her prone form.

He hated doing this; he'd tried to find some other way of taking control of the satellites, but Cameron had assured him there was no other way.

"It's okay John," Cameron held John's shaking hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You know what to do."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," he grumbled as he took the knife and gingerly started to cut a semicircle into her scalp with the knife. He felt like such a bastard doing this to her, using her in this way, despite her reassuring gaze and stroking his hand. The first time he'd done this to her he'd been afraid he'd do it wrong; now he knew what to do, but still hated it because he knew she felt pain. She had human nerve endings in her flesh that connected to sensors all over her body. She felt everything – albeit, she claimed, not like he did, and she could ignore it. It didn't matter to him; white hot guilt stabbed him sharply, simply knowing she could feel the razor sharp knife as it cut through her scalp and down to her skull.

When he'd cut a large enough semicircle he could see the port cover for her chip. He wedged the knife underneath it and managed to pop it off, resulting in a hiss as air rushed into the vacuum protected chip port. He grabbed the pliers and held them in place on the end of the shock dampening assembly connected to the end of her chip.

"Cameron..."

"I'll be okay, John," she smiled at him. He leaned in further and kissed her; afraid it could be the last time. He twisted the assembly and pulled the chip out, hearing the faint whine as her systems powered down. The faint blue glow inside her head flicked off as he removed her chip. He held her chip in both hands, clutching it protectively. It was her brain, her life, her very  _soul_  that he held in his hands, and he was petrified that he would drop her, or trip over and she would smash on the floor. That was partly why he'd sent Perry outside; the infantry captain would be just as likely as Derek to try and smash her chip while she was in this vulnerable state.

He placed the end of her chip into the custom build port he'd used the first time he'd done this and watched the screen on his laptop as he cranked the juice on her chip to activate it. A stream of ones and zeros appeared on the screen; binary code scrolled down the screen so fast he didn't have the faintest clue what was going on. His mind was filled with fear and worries about what could go wrong. He could have damaged her as he pulled her chip out, or when he plugged her into his laptop, or Skynet could sense her presence in cyberspace and simply crush her. As powerful an AI as Cameron was, John knew that Skynet was more, and John truly feared for what might happen to her. If something went wrong he'd never forgive himself.

He tried to distract himself by wondering what it was like in there; tried to imagine what Cameron saw as she worked. The whole plan had been to get Cameron to the Skynet core so John could plug her in. She'd told John that when she was inside she'd break through Skynet's firewalls and take control of the satellites, scrambling their command codes so that Skynet couldn't control them from another site, and also cut off the Area 51 Skynet core from the rest of Skynet's system, placing the core itself under human control. Cameron had suggested she try to attack Skynet directly once she was in the system, but John had been appalled when she'd told him she'd have less than a ten percent chance of succeeding and would likely be wiped out in the process. She'd conceded that it was too much of a risk, and knew that Skynet would destroy her if she failed; wiping out every line of code in her chip and rendering her a blank slate – leaving John unprotected. He'd made her promise not to try it, but the fact she was taking much longer than she had against the ARTIE system made John wonder if she'd gone back on her promise.

A minute passed by and nothing had happened, then another. Five minutes passed by and he could hear someone calling his name on the radio. He heard Davenport report that all the T-2s were destroyed, and Perry reporting the base was secure and firmly in human hands. John barely heard any of it and simply switched his radio off without bothering to answer; they'd won the battle and now the only thing that concerned him was Cameron. After the longest seven minutes of John's life had passed, his laptop beeped and he nearly had a heart attack. He looked at the screen and saw an IM window open up with a single word appearing.

_Done._

John pulled her chip out as gently as possible and reversed the process, placing her chip back in and sealing the port cover, then patting down her scalp so it could heal okay. The same as the first time; he found himself stroking her face as he waited for her to reboot. This time, however, he didn't shy away when her eyes focussed on him and she sat up. Instead he pulled her into a hug, relieved she was okay.

"It's done," she said as she kissed his cheek. "Seventeen rockets launched; one hundred and thirty six satellites have been reprogrammed."

"Good job, Cam," John stood up and held out his hand to help her up. Not needing it, she got up off the floor herself; taking John's hand when she was stood up. She didn't need his help to get up, though she smiled at the gesture. John packed up his laptop and the equipment he'd used to hook Cameron up to the Turk. Once they were all set they grabbed their rifles and John unlocked the door. They walked through the corridor and up the stairs to ground level and walked out of the entrance and past the decapitated T-70, right into the waiting barrels of over thirty assault rifles aimed directly at Cameron.

"Connor," Perry began as he aimed his own gun at Cameron's head, "you've got some explaining to do!"


	13. Rising Storm

"What the hell is this?" John demanded as he took in the sight of a platoon aiming thirty assault rifles at him and Cameron. All the men in front of him looked scared, angry, and eager for a kill; no doubt a combination of the adrenaline still coursing through their veins from the battle and the shock horror at the discovery of Cameron's true nature, and undoubtedly made worse by Perry stirring them into a kind of mob mentality. And from the looks of it, this particular mob was intent on lynching Cameron.

"Step aside, Connor," Perry called out as he marched towards John; his own assault rifle at the ready. "We've got to kill it."

John felt a sense of déjà vu coming on, a similar situation with Davenport in the infirmary just over a month ago. Davenport had been on the edge of hysteria then, but John had managed to talk him down and convince him. He couldn't see the same happening with Perry; especially with all the troops around them. Davenport had been willing to let John explain and gave them the benefit of the doubt. John scanned the area for any sign of the lieutenant, but couldn't see him.  _Shame,_  John thought,  _I could have really done with his help right now._

Though another part of him wondered if Perry was going to try and use it to his advantage; the man clearly had high ambitions, and had thought himself more suited to command than John, even after all his successes. Was Perry using this as a way of getting rid of him? John wondered. He saw a glint of something in Perry's eyes; not just the anger or hate that he could feel coming off the others in waves towards Cameron. Perry was stalking his prey like a lion, looking to pounce at the first sign of weakness. There would be no reasoning with him; not here.

 _"I_  give the orders here, Perry," John snarled at his 2IC as he and Cameron strode out to meet Perry, "so back off!"

"No,  _sir,"_ Perry replied as he pointed the barrel of his rifle to Cameron's head and flicked off the safety catch to automatic fire. John saw that Perry fully intended to execute Cameron; the fear and hot anger was apparent in his eyes, whereas John's were ice cold and betrayed none of his feelings to his opposite. Before Perry could tense his finger on the trigger, John stepped in front of Cameron, hands stretched out in a non threatening gesture.

"We've lost enough people today, Perry," John started, feeling a pang of guilt at the thought of those men who'd died because of his order to attack the base. He pushed it down for now; he'd deal with the guilt and the regret when he was alone with Cameron. "No one else dies today."

"That  _thing_  isn't a person; it's a machine."

"So are you," Cameron countered with her best deadpan expression, "just of weaker construction." Perry wasn't sure if Cameron meant humans in general or him in particular; and was more than a little pissed off that her comment elicited a few snickers from the men pointing weapons at her. John quickly looked out the corner of his eye at Cameron; she wore her usual blank expression on her face, but her head was tilted slightly to the side; she was watching with curiosity, whereas a human in her position would likely be terrified.

"Cameron stays, Perry; we're not discussing this here. Get some patrols up and running, and-"

 _"No, Connor!_ " Perry spat out as he moved to the side to get a bead on Cameron. "We're not having a machine here to slit our throats while our backs are turned. She goes; that's final." John batted Perry's rifle away a split second before he pulled the trigger; a single round cut through the air, missing Cameron completely. Perry instantly let go of the gun and smashed his fist into John's forehead, knocking him to the ground like a sack of bricks. John was stunned for a few moments; he'd never been hit that hard in his life. He knew Perry had been the army's boxing champion for two years prior to Judgement Day, and the full force of that punch told him it was for good reason. It took a few seconds to clear his head and blink away the starbursts in his eyes.

His vision cleared enough to see Perry aiming a pistol down at John's face. Perry had John dead to rights, and both of them knew it. John couldn't get to his own gun before Perry blew his head off. "We can't trust you anymore, Connor," Perry snarled through bared teeth as he kept his finger tense on the trigger.

Cameron instantly raised her own rifle, ignoring the thirty men who retrained their sights on her as she did so, and aimed for Perry's front teeth; the most effective place to shoot a human. The bullet would smash past his teeth and obliterate the brainstem; preventing him from pulling his own trigger in the tenth of a second between impact and death.

She would have already shot Perry, but the platoon in front of her would fire on her and possibly John as well. Even if they didn't shoot him; John would be alone and angry, and would become the broken man who'd sent her back from 2027. The thought of John being so lonely, bitter and broken pained her. She'd have failed her mission and although John would be physically alive, she knew he'd be dead inside. Like a machine. Like how she used to be. So she held her fire for the moment.

"Put the gun down," she coldly commanded; no trace of emotion in her face or voice. "I won't let you hurt John."

"I'm not listening to a tin can," Perry shot back.

"Fine," John said, still on the ground. There was nothing he could do without Perry shooting him. If that happened, he knew how Cameron would respond and what the outcome would be, with all the soldiers pointing rifles at her. At least half of them would have thermite rounds that would burn through her as easily as the bullets from Perry's gun would punch through his skull. She'd never stand a chance. Though John thought to himself, maybe he could use that.

"Shoot me then, Perry," John snapped. "You want to take over, kill me and see what happens. You kill me, Cameron kills you; they-" John gestured to the men still aiming at Cameron – "kill Cameron, but not before she takes out  _at least_  half of them. We all die, and Skynet's laughing."

"Shut it, Connor!" Perry snapped as John slowly got to his feet, keeping his hands away from his body as he rose.

"Do it!" John glared at Perry. "Kill me now or back off!" John saw Perry waver for a moment, indecision in his eyes. Connor had lied to them all, kept a robot in their midst this whole time. Perry's brain didn't register that Cameron was too advanced for Skynet technology, and although a logical part of him knew that she wasn't a T-1 or an HK; she was still a machine – whatever she was or where she'd come from, and would likely ally itself to Skynet, if it hadn't done so already. Connor spent all his time with it, he trusted it. Perry couldn't allow John's mistake to doom them all; he'd get them all killed if he was in charge anymore, but Perry also knew he'd never give up command. He'd heard from the other men how Cameron had scored a hit on the Aurora with some kind of laser weapon, and knew he'd never survive killing John.

A high pitched whine from above tore their collective attention away from each other and up to the sky. A Predator drone buzzed low overhead and looped around to make another pass over the base.

"What the hell?" Perry mumbled as he looked up. That moment's distraction was all John needed; he pulled out his own sidearm and shoved it into Perry's face, pressing the barrel hard into the larger man's cheek. A few seconds later, a rocket flew into the air and shattered the unmanned aircraft.

"See that?" John asked, nodding his head upwards. "Reconnaissance drone. Skynet knows we took the base, and it'll try to take it back. Do you  _really_  want to stand around arguing when that happens?"

Perry said nothing, but John could read his face and knew that Perry was wavering again. A few more seconds passed before he lowered his gun and put it back in his holster.

"This isn't over," Perry growled.

"Whatever," John replied curtly as he put his own pistol away. Cameron did the same. "Get these guys on patrols, sort out some kind of defence, and get some reinforcements from Vegas."

"Sir," Perry grumbled as he turned around and started barking orders at the men he'd brought to kill Cameron. They dispersed into squads and headed back towards their armoured vehicles to start patrolling

"Oh, and Perry; this is the  _last_  time I ever give you an order twice," John spat out as he walked past him and out towards the perimeter fence, towards the parked vehicles that survived the battle. "Get to work!"

Cameron stared at John in confusion; she'd never seen him so angry before. She'd been uncertain as to whether or not he'd have killed Captain Perry. She also felt responsible for the men's reactions. It was because of her that the confrontation between John and Perry had happened, and why John was so angry.

"You're upset," she said when they were out of earshot.

"I'm fine," John replied. He didn't want to talk about this now; he was seriously pissed and needed some time to calm down.

"It's because of me," Cameron stated.

"What?" John asked, incredulous.

"You're angry because they know I'm a machine." John could see how her mind was working now; simple cause and effect, the route of why John was angry was because of what she was. He didn't want her to think she was to blame.

"No, Cam," John's voice softened and he stopped as they approached the gate. "It's  _not_  your fault, okay. I just hate it when people treat you like a  _thing_ ; they want you dead, but they know nothing about you. They don't even know what a Terminator is."

"They do now," Cameron replied. Before John could say anything in response, his radio crackled in his ear.

_"General Connor, this is Sergeant Maxwell; I'm in lab complex two. We've found something you need to see right away, sir."_

"Something bad?" John asked, wondering what else he'd have to deal with now.

 _"Something weird,"_ Maxwell replied.

"Okay," John sighed, "I'll be right there." John kept marching out towards the parked vehicles – some of which were now starting up and rolling out to patrol the area around the base. He saw Davenport briefing a group of three men as he approached. When they saw Cameron, the three men Davenport had been talking to all raised their weapons in shock.

"Cool it guys," Davenport said without even looking up from what he was doing and then dismissed the men to whatever he'd told them to do before John and Cameron appeared.

 _"Ouch,"_  Davenport said, looking at the gashes in Cameron's skin. "They're going to heal, right?" he asked.

"No," Cameron answered. John looked at her, worried for a moment that something critical in her had been damaged during the fight. "My skin doesn't heal; it regenerates. Healing creates scar tissue and would compromise3 infiltration." John breathed a sigh of relief; she'd never told him that before, but it made sense. Otherwise, Cameron's face and body would be a mass of scars by now. He'd always love her, even if that were the case – he'd still love her even with no skin at all - but he'd be unable to look at her without feeling guilty; knowing each and every scar would have been caused saving his life.

"What's the damage?" John asked Davenport.

"Sixty-three dead, thirty-one wounded – sixteen critical - and eighteen vehicles destroyed or damaged beyond repair."

"Jesus," John bowed his head, feeling his earlier guilt returning. He'd thought his strategy with the Apaches would have reduced their losses. He felt like a complete failure. Cameron saw John hang his head, recognised the look of shame on his face when Davenport spoke of their casualties, and knew that was what upset him. He was hiding it well, but Cameron could see he was upset at losing so many. He seemed so very different from Future John, Cameron thought.

The battle of Topanga Canyon had been what Future John had described as one of the bloodiest of the war – Cameron didn't know why; plasma weaponry instantly cauterised wounds, so very little blood was actually shed. They had lost over four thousand fighters to that battle alone, and she remembered perfectly, Future John not batting an eye when he'd heard the casualty figures. She didn't want her John to be upset, but she knew it was better than feeling nothing. She'd been there before and even though she regularly had trouble identifying or sometimes even controlling her emotions, she'd rather be terminated than return to how she used to be.

"Take them inside when you're done here," John said. "We'll bury them later." Nuclear winter made the desert even harsher than usual, and the vultures and other carrion scavengers would make short work of their dead, given the chance. They gave their lives to capture Area 51 and give them all a fighting chance, John thought, and the least he could do was give them a decent burial later. Now though, he had to bottle up his emotions and concentrate on the job in hand.

John and Cameron marched across the base to the lab complex, both ignoring the scowls and stares from the soldiers they passed. John guessed that word of Cameron's mechanical nature had gotten around, and the men were already putting her in the same lot as Skynet and the other machines. John knew he'd have to be careful to keep Cameron safe now; he'd have to give Perry and the others an explanation later, but was sure whatever he said wouldn't make much of a difference to them.

The research lab sergeant Maxwell was in was practically identical to the lab complex he'd been in before; from the general layout of the building, to the whitewashed walls and glaring linoleum floor. He still couldn't shake the feeling he got from the place; the sterile coldness that reminded him so much of Pescadero. John figured that the building, being much the same as the other lab complex, would be all offices above ground, and the actual labs would be in the basement.

Once they'd descended the stairs down to the basement level; in the same relative place as in the first lab complex, they were greeted by Sergeant Maxwell, who instantly saw the gleaming coltan shining through Cameron's skin and raised his assault rifle.

"Put it down," John sighed, frustrated, as he pushed the sergeant's barrel towards the ground. "I don't want to hear anything about Cameron, okay? We've just been through it all with Perry."

Maxwell looked nervously at John, then back at Cameron. His eyes darted back and forth a few times before replying, "y-yes sir."

"Good. What have you got?" John asked, nodding towards the entrance to the main lab behind Maxwell.

"Well, you won't believe it, sir. All that crap about aliens in Area 51; it's  _real."_

"Show me," John replied. Cameron stayed silent next to him as they pushed open the doors in entered the lab.

Unlike the first lab complex, the basement of this one was all one large room, rather than divided into several smaller labs. The basement itself was huge; lower down underground than the first, the ceiling was much higher, and the room was as long and wide as the building above.

It wasn't the room that caught John's attention; it was what was inside it. John and Cameron's eyes both widened in fascination and horror. In the centre of the lab, inside a glass display case, stood three metal endoskeletons, their skulls grinning in that horrible death's head mask John has seen far too many times in his short life. All three endoskeletons looked as if they'd been on the losing side of a huge battle; they were all battered and dented, the normally gleaming metal had been dulled and burnt. Arms and legs had been cut or torn off, and then hastily repaired by someone who hadn't had either the right tools or expertise. One of them was missing a right arm; pieces of the missing limb were shown on a pedestal in front of the main display case.

John tried to quell the instinctive fear that rose up inside him at seeing three Terminators before him. The logical part of his brain that knew they weren't moving and were offline almost gave in to his mom's training that had conditioned him to run from a machine on sight.

"Skynet T-900 series; they're deactivated," Cameron said quietly as she examined the machines, seeing the fear in John's eyes. "Their chips have been removed." John resisted the urge to sigh with relief at Cameron's statement. Despite her reassurance, he still half expected to see their eyes glow red and then break through the glass to kill him.

"Nineteen forty-seven," Cameron recited.

"What?" John asked.

"'Roswell, New Mexico. July, 1947'" Cameron said as she indicated towards a plaque at the front of the display case.

"Goddamn UFO nuts were right," Maxwell said behind them. "Never would have thought it."

"They're  _not_  aliens," John replied tersely. He wondered how the hell they could have gotten here. John had heard about the Roswell incident, a common urban legend; UFO crash, Roswell, little green men; John had never given it much thought, but he'd never really believed in all that crap. And he'd have enough on his plate with cyborgs stalking him at every turn to worry about aliens from outer space. Now he knew those stories had some level of truth to them, but he'd never have guessed  _this."_

"How did they get here?" John asked. Cameron opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by a corporal to their left.

"If you like that, you'll  _love_  this." John turned away from the endoskeletons and saw what the man was pointing at. John hadn't noticed it before, he was so caught up with the endoskeletons that he'd missed it entirely.

Dominating half of the room, inside an even larger display case, sat the massive, streamlined shape of an HK; much larger than the ones John was used to seeing. From Derek's and Cameron's description, John could tell this one was a future model. It, like the Terminators, was a wreck; smashed to pieces and put back together in a vain effort at repair. It gleamed silver in a few places but was covered in gashes and burn marks. John instantly guessed that this was where the plasma cannon Cameron had used earlier had come from, and he could tell from the way Cameron stared at the shattered aircraft that she'd come to the same conclusion.

"Where the hell did this thing come from?" John wondered aloud. He'd always been told that nothing dead could come through; even if the Terminators had had skin at some point, the HK wouldn't have. And  _why_  would Skynet send it back? A Terminator, he could understand, but not an HK.

"Living tissue creates an energy field," Cameron started, making sure that only John was within earshot. "Without that field, nothing can go back in time."

"Time travel 101," John quipped

"Skynet tried to artificially replicate the field for the T-1000 series; this must be its first attempt." John shuddered at the mere mention of the T-1000; it still gave him nightmares to this day.

"Skynet got it right though," John recalled. "It sent a T-1000 after me when I was ten; so why didn't it just send an army back instead?" If John was in Skynet's place, he thought, he'd have sent back a lot more than a few cyborgs back in time.

"I don't know," Cameron replied honestly. She knew how other machines thought, but not Skynet. Skynet, like her, was different.

"Cam, do you think this is why the timeline's all screwed up?" John asked. "You said yourself; the rockets, the satellites, the T-70s, they're all earlier than what happened before."

Cameron pondered that for a moment. She'd been concerned by events unfolding so much earlier than before; things appearing long before they were due to appear. She'd tried to consider what could have accelerated Skynet's development like this. Seeing the endoskeletons and the remains of the HK, Cameron knew that nothing else could explain it. Skynet sent the machines back, and whether it had planned it or not; the remains had been found in New Mexico, brought back to Area 51 for study – the military at the time thinking they were aliens – and reverse engineered. Skynet was built from the Turk, but Cameron realised now that these time displaced machines were effectively the source of all Skynet's machines in this timeline. She filed away this information, knowing it would come in handy in sixteen years time when John would have to send Kyle Reese, the T-800 he'd called Bob, and either herself or her future incarnation, back to protect him.

Though in addition to Skynet's altering the timeline; she'd also drawn parallels with her John. The state of the resistance now – a little over a hundred and twenty units worldwide and growing – was far more than what Future John had had at this point. John had taken out key installations in Colorado before Skynet had established itself in the region, and as a result, large parts of the state were under human control. She calculated that if John kept up the current pace of resistance, he could potentially defeat Skynet within six years. She decided to keep that to herself.

"Post two guards at this door," John said to Maxwell. "No one gets in, and I don't want a word breathed about what's in here to anyone." John didn't want anyone finding out about the endoskeletons or the HK. John left Maxell to lock the room up as he and Cameron left and ascended the stairs back up to ground level.

"Cam, remind me to get some thermite brought up here," John said to Cameron. "I want everything in those labs destroyed."

"We should keep them," Cameron countered. "We could use the weapons later." John shook his head at himself; he'd been so worked up over defending Cameron, so angry that Perry had tried to put her down like a dog; that he wasn't thinking clearly. Coupled with the fact that he'd spent three days planning, preparing, and orchestrating the capture of Area 51 and had had precious little sleep in that time; it was a miracle he'd kept his wits about him all this time. John barely even noticed when Cameron slid her tiny hand into his, squeezing gently.

"You're exhausted," Cameron said as she scanned him. "You need rest." A long time ago, John would have pulled away in disgust at that. He'd originally been angry that her subtle signs of affection, the slight caresses, had been nothing more than her keeping tabs on his physical state. For a long time, he'd convinced himself that she was only following her programming; back when he'd distanced himself from her after the events on his sixteenth birthday. Later, after he'd started to put it all behind him; he'd found her scans merely irritating – an invasion of his privacy. It wasn't until after his mom had been killed, when the bond between them became inseparable; that John had realised it simply meant she cared.

"I can't sleep, Cam," John sighed as he pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed it gently. "Sleep's for people who don't have the weight of the world on their shoulders."

Before either John or Cameron could say anything further, John's radio crackled in his ear.

_"General, it's Davenport. Perry got through to Ryan in Las Vegas and they're sending up two extra platoons."_

"That's good, Davenport," John automatically replied; the feeling of fatigue getting so strong John barely registered what the lieutenant was saying.

 _"Not so much,"_ Davenport answered back.  _"Perry told Ryan about Cameron and now Ryan's ordered Perry to put you under arrest. He is_ pissed!"

* * *

The journey back to Las Vegas had been surprisingly uneventful. Perry, under orders from Ryan to arrest John, was never given the chance to try. John had marched up to the captain, flanked by Cameron and Davenport, and said he was going back to Vegas anyway. Perry had told John he'd been ordered to arrest him; John simply ignored the man and jumped into the back of a Humvee; Cameron joining him in the back while Davenport once again drove. Perry left a lieutenant in charge of the base's defence while he followed John's Humvee across the desert and back to Las Vegas.

When they arrived, Ryan met them with a well armed fire team and 'invited' them to his quarters to 'discuss' urgent matters; namely Cameron. John had told Ryan he wanted to put a call out to all outposts in the country. He wanted any and all surviving physicists, chemists, engineers, anyone who had a science degree, to be brought to Area 51 to work on the time displaced technology and try to perfect some of the weapons. If they would duplicate the plasma cannon Cameron had used against the Aurora, and mass produce it, they'd have a hell of an edge in battle against the machines.

But Ryan had been more interested in other matters; he told one of his men to put the call out on the radio, but then changed the subject back to Cameron.

John sat with Cameron on a faux leather couch in what used to be an office, before Perry and Ryan, both of whom looked like they hard dark storm clouds over them. Both men still clutched their assault rifles tightly; waiting for the slightest excuse to blow Cameron away. On either side of the room were two more soldiers, brandishing carbines and staring at Cameron with contempt. Davenport and Derek were also present in the room; the latter tilting in his chair and lazily polishing the blade of his combat knife, seemingly ignoring the arguments raging around the room.

"I say we waste this tin can right now!" Ryan snarled as he poked Cameron's temple with the barrel of his M4A1 carbine. "Melt the bitch down and make her into bullets."

"It's funny how you're up for a fight  _now,"_ Davenport rolled his eyes as he spoke. "When you're all nice and safe, and it's only the one machine you want to kill."

"What's your point,  _lieutenant?"_  Ryan snapped, insulted at Davenport's insinuation.

"Where were you while we did all the fighting,  _Sir?_  I didn't see you straining yourself to get stuck in."

"No one's 'wasting' anyone!" John snapped, silencing them all. Cameron said nothing in her own defence and John knew it was up to him to speak up for her. "Cameron's done nothing wrong; she hasn't hurt anyone."

"But  _you_  have," Ryan sneered. "You brought metal here. She's been under our noses the whole time!"

"Ryan's right, Connor," Perry added. "You lied to us the whole time; that thing's working for Skynet for all we know. Hell,  _you_  could be working for Skynet; we can't trust  _you!"_

"If John or I were working for Skynet; we wouldn't be having this conversation," Cameron chipped in. Naturally; neither Perry nor Ryan were about to listen to her.

"I told you this would happen," Derek said sternly to John.

"You knew about this as well?" Perry snapped at Derek.

"Yeah, I knew. And I told Connor a thousand times to get rid of it. That thing," Derek pointed at Cameron, "can't be trusted." Derek got up and sheathed his knife, then left the room without another word.

John scolded himself inwardly; he'd hoped Derek would come around - at least enough to accept that Cameron wasn't a threat, but he knew now that it would never happen. Derek knew that Cameron wasn't a threat, that she wouldn't go bad again. John knew that. But he Derek had cut himself off from John completely. He'd made it abundantly clear that he'd follow orders, but that would be the limit of his cooperation. Derek wouldn't ever help him out with anything regarding Cameron. He was on his own.

"One of your own men says that thing is a threat," Ryan growled at John. "Is it going to kill us in our sleep?"

"No, but  _I_ might if you don't shut up," Davenport muttered.

"Cameron's loyalty isn't in question here," John snapped. "I trust her more than any of you; I wouldn't trade her for a hundred tanks or a whole squadron of jet fighters!"

"You're too close to that thing," Perry said. "You better not be fucking it, Connor." John strained not to look at Cameron, or make any kind of reaction. He decided he'd hidden it enough; he'd promised Cameron he'd come clean about their relationship. That he wasn't ashamed of her, or of being with her. And now was his chance to make good on that. He took a breath then started, knowing they wouldn't take it well.

"Cameron and I..."

"No," Cameron interrupted him. "My mission is to protect John. We're not 'fucking,' I'm a machine." Technically, in Cameron's eyes, it was the truth. She was a machine, and she didn't refer to what she and John did as 'fucking.' John's heart sank. He wasn't ashamed of Cameron; and he'd thought maybe if he'd been open about it, if they got to know her properly, then they'd understand her better, and not fear or hate her. The fact that Cameron thought otherwise wounded him worse than any bullet ever could.

"Changing the subject," Perry couldn't stomach even the idea that anyone would screw a robot. It was sickening, so he blocked the mental image from his mind for now. "What the hell are you, anyway?" He shot at Cameron. He'd never seen a machine like her before. He wanted to know exactly where she came from and what she was.

"Who cares?" Ryan retorted, prodding the side of Cameron's head with his rifle. "You're fucking scrap, bitch! You're dead!" Cameron stared blankly at him and stood up from her seat, unaware that she was making herself seem more threatening to Ryan. Ryan raised his rifle once more at Cameron; the two guards in the room also levelled their weapons at her and moved to get a better shot. Cameron moved forward to cover John, knowing several men in Ryan's unit were very poor shots and could well hit John.

"Bitch!" Ryan opened fire; mistaking her quick movement for an attack. The pair of guards also opened up on her; pelting her with 5.56mm rounds that tore through her already damaged skin. Cameron assessed the damage in an instant; they were only regular rounds. No thermite. No threat. Cameron pushed John back with such force that the couch he was on toppled over, providing him with at least some cover. Cameron leapt forward and kicked Ryan in the gut, doubling him over as the wind was knocked out of him. With bullets still pinging off her endoskeleton, each one tearing another chunk of flesh from her body, she grabbed one of the guards by the neck and threw him like a rag doll across the room. He hit the wall with a sickening crunch and slid down to the floor.

In the same movement, Cameron twisted around and launched a perfect roundhouse kick into the face of the second guard, breaking his jaw and dropping him to the ground, unconscious. Cameron then turned back around to face Ryan, who'd picked himself up off the floor and had a 9mm Browning aimed at her face. Cameron shot her hand out so fast it was barely a blur and closed it over Ryan's. She slowly squeezed his hand, hard, coldly watching him grimace in pain as she increased the pressure.

Perry had started to raise his own rifle, but John had already got up from the floor, and he and Davenport had drawn their own weapons on him before he could bring his gun to bear.

"Don't even think about it," John glared at Perry. Perry dropped his gun and watched as Ryan fell to his knees in agony, crying out in pain as the bones in his hand snapped. Cameron finally let go of Ryan's hand; the man fell back and clutched his hand.

"You might want to get some ice on that," Davenport grinned.

"You just proved our point!" Perry snapped. "That thing is dangerous! We can't have it around!"

"Ryan  _did_  fire first," Davenport argued back.

"Fine," John replied. He was sick of this already. He'd let Perry have it his way. "You don't want us; we're gone! Come on Cameron, we're leaving." John turned to the door as Cameron followed.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Perry demanded to know.

"You can't trust us? We'll leave and let you two run things here, then. But  _I'm_ the one who brought us all together here;  _I_  set up Cheyenne and organized  _everything._  They follow  _my_ orders, because I know how Skynet thinks. If I go, they all split up and this resistance crumbles." John levelled his stare at Ryan as he continued. "I hope you've got a good plan to take out Nellis air base; or they'll bomb you out of hiding, force you out into the open and hunt you down like rats. No mercy; they'll hunt you all down to extinction.

"You two want to run the show; go ahead. Ryan, you're in charge. You run your little city. You sit right here and cower away like you were before we came along. Sit  _right here_  and wait for Skynet to come calling. Let's see how long you last!"

"Wait! Do you have a plan to take out Nellis?" Ryan asked after a long pause. He'd wanted John to help him take care of the massive threat posed by the machines in the base, and suddenly realised that threat was still present and he had no clue how to take care of it himself.

"I do," John replied.

"What is it?"

"Doesn't matter, we quit," John answered as he opened the door. "You're on your own."

Perry mulled everything over inside. John had a plan; he  _always_  seemed to have a plan. Ryan had nothing. Perry thought he could lead better than Connor. But he had to admit the kid knew Skynet better than anyone else. And he had a certain charisma; a way of inspiring people, that Perry knew he lacked himself. People wouldn't listen to him, not the way they did Connor. That said, Connor had lied to them all and kept a machine under their noses. Perry knew no machine could be trusted; Skynet had managed to take control of the T-1s, T-2s, and UCAVs; he couldn't see why Skynet couldn't or wouldn't do the same to Cameron, if it hadn't already. And the fact that Connor placed such implicit trust in this one, even if it was more advanced than anything else he'd ever seen, made his judgement questionable.

"We're gone," John repeated himself before Perry could continue his internal debate any further. "You want my help; you have to learn to live with Cameron around, because I trust her. Otherwise there's nothing I can do."

"How do we know Skynet won't turn her?" Perry asked. "How do we know she isn't already under its control?"

"Yeah, she's working for Skynet  _right now_ ," Davenport replied sarcastically. "She's killed more metal than everyone in this room put together, including Connor. That would make her the  _worst_  double agent in history!"

"I don't even care anymore," John snapped. "If you want my help, you accept Cameron. If not, then we'll go. It's your choice." John led Cameron out the door without waiting for an answer, and slammed it behind him. He led Cameron to their temporary quarters, not speaking a word to her the whole way back.

* * *

Cameron could see John was angry without running a scan or analysing the telltale signs present in all humans. She knew his traits, and silence was one of them. John barely said a word as he carefully picked out the bullets from her flesh and cleaned and dressed her wounds. He wasn't angry at  _her_ , she knew. The tender and careful way he treated her injuries told her as much.

"You were bluffing," Cameron said to John; somewhere between a statement and a question. "Would you leave them?"

"I...I don't know," John answered. As he dabbed a cloth into a bowl of water – already red with her blood – and wiped the debris out of the last wound on her face; just above her cheek. He'd never felt so angry in a long time; not since Derek had tried to kill Cameron. He couldn't do this without Cameron; he knew he couldn't. Not and keep his sanity, at least. He didn't want to lose her, least of all to a pair of pig headed morons like Perry and Ryan, whose heads were stuck so far up their own asses that they threw her in the same lot as other machines; simply a tool to be used by Skynet. He'd been half bluffing, he knew. He'd hoped that Perry and Ryan would come to their senses; Ryan was more scared of Nellis air base than anything else; and rightly so. John had hoped that they'd come around if he threatened to withdraw his help and leave them to face Skynet alone. He wouldn't let them harm Cameron. If it came to it, he'd leave them all to keep her safe; take a Humvee, and drive off with Cameron, and just disappear into Alaska or Canada; far away from here.

John taped a piece of gauze over her cheek, finishing up his treatment and leaning back into the couch they now sat on. She'd told him before it wasn't necessary to treat her wounds; she was immune to infection and they'd heal in a little over a day. But she liked it when he did treat her, so she said nothing and let him work on her.

"You won't leave them," Cameron stated. She knew John better than he did. She knew that deep down, he'd never abandon them; it was what made him what he was. That he'd sacrifice everything for them, even if most didn't deserve it. She knew that because that's what Future John had done; sacrificed his whole life, even his soul, for them. Cameron was determined to make sure her John never had to make that sacrifice for them.

"What can I do then?" John asked her as she wrapped an arm around him. "I won't let them hurt you, Cam." Cameron held John closer, knowing how upset he was. She did a scan and found his heart rate was over a hundred beats a minute, and he was sweating and shivering. He was stressed and it was taking its toll on him.

"Why did you lie about us?" John asked her. "I was going to tell them; I'm not ashamed, Cam."

"They would have lost faith in you," she replied, "doubted your judgement. They wouldn't trust you anymore."

"They don't anyway," John said, feeling very depressed all of a sudden.

Cameron quickly straddled John's lap and kissed him; knowing how she could help his stress and make him feel better.

"Don't, Cam," John pushed her away, but she tried again, kissing her way down his neck while she caressed his shoulders and chest. "I said don't!" John snapped as he pushed her away. She got the hint and climbed off him, sighing with frustration.

"You never reject me," Cameron said, confused.

"I'm sorry, Cam," John answered, pulling her closer into a hug, trying to make up for it. "I'm just not in the mood." John hung his head, slightly ashamed. The whole day was getting to him; first the stress and tension before the battle, then the massive casualties afterwards, then walking into a platoon with weapons drawn on Cameron, and then having Perry and Ryan try to gang up on them. It was a lot to take in all at once, and he didn't know how he'd cope with it all. And now he was taking it out on Cameron. He hated himself for that.

"Its okay, John," Cameron said as John leaned into her and rested his head on her shoulder. She took his hand in hers and gently massaged it, as she stroked her fingers through his hair with her other hand, trying to soothe John. Within minutes it was effective. His heart rate slowed to fifty, and his brain was preparing for sleep that she knew John was in desperate need of.

"Derek could have said something," John moaned, keeping his eyes closed as sleep approached. "He just hung us out to dry. He's trying to make things worse for you."

"Don't worry about me, John," Cameron said. She kissed John gently on the forehead as he slowly drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Cameron knew John was right. Derek had made things worse for them. Lieutenant Davenport had tried to be supportive, but Derek had been in a far better position to help, and had deliberately stirred further mistrust of her. She didn't care, but she knew John did, and that he was deeply upset right now. She didn't like John being upset. Seeing John upset made her upset. When John was in a deep sleep she slowly peeled herself from his embrace, careful not to wake him. She opened the door and stepped outside, taking another look at him before she closed the door and left him asleep in the room.

Derek was, in part, responsible for Perry and Ryan turning on John. He'd chosen to make things difficult for John, and she'd seen how if affected him. She knew John valued Derek greatly, as his uncle and the only member of his family. Cameron that humans placed great value on family, above almost all others, though she'd never experienced it. Cyborgs had no family. Skynet had been her slave master. She'd never thought of Sarah or Derek as family, despite them all posing as one in the past. She'd never thought of John as family; at first he'd been simply her mission, then her friend, and now her lover.

Derek was the last family John had left and he'd distanced himself from John; alienating him and causing John distress. Cameron couldn't allow it to go on. Something had to be done with Derek.

She walked down the quiet corridors of the airport, searching for Derek. She stood on a platform above the departure lounge and scanned the slumbering troops below. None were Derek. She walked out towards an exit and saw a lone soldier outside, smoking a cigarette.

"You shouldn't smoke, it's bad for you," she said blankly.

"Fuck you, tin can," the man replied. Word had gotten around about Cameron, and now everyone in Las Vegas knew about her true nature.

"Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, and the machines can see the glow from the tip." The soldier grunted and stubbed out the cigarette on her shoulder, burning through the fabric of her shirt and singeing the skin underneath. She made no move to stop him or showed any signs of pain; deliberately acting as robotic as possible.

"Where's Lieutenant Baum?" She asked him as he dropped the cigarette butt to the ground. The soldier simply stared at her then spat in her face, laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

"What's wrong? Did I offend you?" The soldier asked sarcastically. "What're you going to do about it, huh? He flicked the safety off on his rifle; the safety catch clicking loudly in the empty corridor. "Go on, give me an excuse."

Cameron didn't even bother to wipe his saliva off her face. Derek had spat on her before; she analysed both the actions and expressions of both men – both looked angry, both looked at her as if she were nothing - and concluded that spitting was a sign of contempt. Cameron didn't feel contempt, but she felt something else, something unpleasant, towards this man, as well as Derek. John had told her to defend herself against any kind of attack. She decided this was a form of attack on her, and decided on a proportional response. She sent a conscious command to the glands in her mouth to produce more saliva. After a few seconds she deemed she had enough, and spat back into the soldier's face. Not expecting a response at all like that, the soldier froze, dumbstruck.

Feeling strangely but immensely satisfied with herself, Cameron decided she'd find Derek on her own, and continued on her way.

* * *

"Fucking metal bitch," Derek grumbled as he scanned the blackness outside the airport with his night sight. If he never saw the tin can again it would be too soon. He knew he should have gone a bit easier on John; knowing would have been an inquisition over Cameron. And he supposed, in hindsight, that he could have been more supportive; but it had felt pretty good to stick it to the machine like that.

He truly hated that machine, that would never change, no matter what it said or did; but John was all the family he had left. Thinking about it, he didn't really want to lose him. Not to mention he'd promised Sarah that he'd look after John if she died. He knew he should try and build a bridge between them again. Things were taking their toll on John, and he needed some support. Derek guessed he'd have to at least  _try_  to put his differences with the metal aside; at least, for John's sake. Everything he'd done was for John's sake. He'd tried to get rid of her for John's own good; but now he realised that his nephew was so attached to it, so i _n love_ with it – something that still made him sick to his stomach – that he knew it would destroy him to lose her. He'd be a wreck, and no good to anyone.

"I must be getting old," he grumbled to himself. He felt sick that he'd have to try and play nice with the metal.  _Well; I've done it before,_ he thought to himself. They'd worked together plenty of times in the past, he'd just have to think of this as another mission; a  _long_  one. He'd do it, if only to prove that it was a fuck up, and that real, honest to God humans, would win this war; not dressed up tin cans.

A faint rustling to his right drew Derek's attention. He snapped his HK G36 around in a heartbeat, but was still too slow. An all too familiar shape surged forward from the darkness with glowing eyes, mere feet away and rapidly getting closer as it lunged at him. Derek fired a burst from his rifle and yelled out in sheer aggression just as a powerful coltan fist slammed hard into his face.

"Metal b..."


	14. Guilty Until Proven Innocent

**Fort Carson**

Three billion human lives had been extinguished on Judgement Day; hundreds, thousands of cities across the world had fallen victim to devastating nuclear attacks. Skynet launched a second wave of chemical attacks on the remaining population centres; preserving their infrastructures for Skynet's use whilst wiping out any chance of resistance from their human inhabitants, rendering them ghost towns, deathly silent and devoid of any life.

Fort Carson was one clear exception, however; silence replaced by the constant  _thrumming_ of engines, the  _clacking_ of combat boots on tarmac, and the echoing  _slams_  of crates and boxes being unceremoniously dumped into the backs of numerous cargo trucks. Fort Carson, unlike most places now, was full of life. A dozen men worked to load precious cargo into the backs of as many trucks, bound for resistance bases hidden among the ruins of several cities and towns in Colorado. Above the background noises of a base in operation was the sound of numerous voices, chatting loudly as they worked; unafraid of being discovered, since under Connor's lead they had cleared Fort Carson, Colorado Springs, and the surrounding areas, and made them probably the safest place on Earth.

"Seriously Sarge," one voice sounded above the others. "I'm tired of all these damn supply runs. When are we gonna bust some metal?"

"When you learn to hold your gun properly, Parker," Burke shot back at the new recruit, prompting him to hold his rifle in both hands instead of lazily leaning it over his shoulder. Burke couldn't blame the man for being antsy; most people – both soldiers and civilians- had lost someone on Judgement Day, and there was no shortage of those who wanted vengeance of some kind. The upshot of that was they had plenty of new, eager recruits; the downside being that some were a little too eager and wanted to run before they could even crawl.

While Connor was fighting Skynet in Nevada, Ellison had most of the remaining squads in Cheyenne on supply runs to and from Fort Carson; keeping the mountain base supplied and also distributing ammunition to nearby resistance units. While Connor had been healing from his gunshot wounds, Captain Perry had led numerous attacks on Skynet factories, and had captured plenty of ammunition in the process; they'd captured almost a million rounds of 7.62mm ammo and crates upon crates of the heavier 30mm rounds which they could use for the Sentry guns that Cameron had made.

Ammunition wasn't going to be a problem for a good, long while. Something Burke was grateful for, as only a day after Connor had left, a recon patrol in Pueblo County had spotted another factory that had sprouted up from nowhere and needed to be taken out. The new recruits had gotten wind of the discovery in Pueblo and many wanted a piece of the action, despite being barely trained.

"Aw, come on, Sarge, I'm getting sick of these milk run missions," another newbie chipped in as he loaded a box of grenades into the back of a cargo truck.

"Let's see how 'sick' of them you are when you're pinned down by HKs and your friends are getting slaughtered next to you!" Burke snapped at them. He'd never say it to them but he desperately wanted to be out on the front lines as well; not babysitting half a dozen barely trained 'cadets' on a supply mission. "Get back to work; I want those trucks ready to go in five minutes."

"Aw, man! We're not even half done yet," another conscript moaned.

"Then I suggest you double time it, maggots," Burke answered. "And the next one who complains is walking home!"

The trainee soldiers muttered to themselves but picked up their pace and started to load crates of ammunition, food, and medical supplies into the trucks; none of them doubting the sergeant's threat for a second. Burke watched as they worked; he too wanted to get back into the action. He'd not shot at any metal for nearly a week now and it was driving him crazy. He knew the only way for them to learn how to fight was to give them some real experience, but there was little in the immediate area for them to take on; Skynet hadn't sent as much as a single machine on patrol in the area for days.

The biggest threats were now further afield; Denver was slightly safer since Connor had taken out the airfield near Aurora, but was still full of Skynet's ground units. Since Connor had captured Area 51, only hours ago, James Ellison had already used the satellites to take photos of large parts of Colorado, and the news wasn't good. Pueblo County, Gunnison County, and Fort Collins were all confirmed to have numerous factories in place, churning out more machines. Ellison had found nearly thirty other suspected Skynet sites dotted around Colorado. Whilst John had been beating the tar out of Skynet wherever he went, the AI had been busy elsewhere, building up its forces in secret, right under their noses.

Factories seemed to be popping up everywhere now, but the survivors in those cities lacked supplies, training, and weapons to really do much about them. With Connor and the bulk of their force in Nevada, they lacked the manpower or the resources for a full scale assault. So Cheyenne Mountain maintained a defensive status whilst still fulfilling its role as the hub for worldwide resistance communications, and the remaining soldiers were kept busy running supplies to outlying resistance units, beefing them up so they could send out patrols and launch attacks of their own.

Until Connor came back they were stuck on supply duties, which although Burke knew were necessary, also proved to be extremely tedious. He had to grin when he thought about it; all the soldiers in Cheyenne Mountain  _wanted_ to fight, when most people simply ran and hid when the machines came. All the soldiers under Connor's command relished the opportunity for a fight. And it was entirely because of John Connor; wherever he went, people seemed to rally behind him. He'd given them all something that many had lost on Judgement Day. Hope. He'd shown them that the machines could be killed, that Skynet wasn't invincible.

Minutes later, several of the trucks were full, fuelled, and rolled out to their various destinations, along with their escort vehicles – armed with .50 cal machine guns and Stinger missiles. Burke noticed recruit Parker and a few others had seemingly decided they'd earned themselves a break and sat down to take swigs of water from their canteens. Burke decided to let it slide, just this once. They'd been working around the clock lately; if they weren't on duties like this one, they were stripping down their rifles and learning how they worked and how to clean them. And if they weren't doing  _that_  then they were subjected to longlectures on the various Skynet machines and how they operated.

"Sarge," Parker strolled up to the man casually, as if they were old friends. "So tell me, sarge, when do we get our first  _real_  mission?" Burke smiled again at the man's eagerness, but the grin was wiped from his face as he heard a faint, high pitched droning sound in the air.

"Shut up," Burke answered as he strained his ears to listen better.

"C'mon, Sarge, you can tell me."

"Quiet!" Burke growled. Parker saw the grim expression on his sergeant's face and fell silent. Burke recognised the sound after a few seconds; he'd heard it enough times in Afghanistan to recognise it anywhere. "Incoming," Burke spoke to the recruits as well as into his radio to the squads providing cover at the base perimeter. "Everyone inside, now!"

One thing Burke didn't need to teach any of the recruits was how to run and hide; they'd all survived in the ruins of Colorado for some time before either being rescued or making their way to Cheyenne Mountain, and had all learned fairly decent survival skills in a very short time. So he had no problem getting them all sprinting inside the nearest building; the dilapidated officer's mess which had been shot to pieces in the Fort Carson battle several months ago.

All the trainees – most likely out of instinct – bolted into the building and got down on the floor in the first room they entered; what had used to be a common room that now looked like a bomb had gone off inside it. Armchairs, sofas, and tables had all been shattered and debris was spilled across the floor. A pool table at the far end of one room had been split in half, most likely hit by a single 30mm round that had gone right through and exploded against the wall behind. The walls had large chunks gouged out from multiple 30mm hits and provided little protection from T-1s or T-2s. But they weren't what had Burke so worried.

" _This is Sharpe; both squads have fallen back to the armoury. What's going on?"_

"Predator overhead," Burke replied. "Stay indoors and don't move until I say. We can't let it see us."

"What's the big deal?" One of the recruits asked. "If it's only a Predator, it's probably unarmed. We've got Stingers; why not just shoot it down?"

"Because that gives us away to Skynet, idiot," Burke hissed. "Shooting it down tells Skynet we're here. Those things use infrared; you go outside and it'll see you before you even..." Burke trailed off mid sentence as he realised the trucks outside would still be hot from their engines being on; they'd be lit up like a Christmas tree to the Predator and Skynet would realise without a doubt that Fort Carson was still in operation. Burke switched his radio channel to talk with Cheyenne Mountain.

"This is Burke at Fort Carson. We've got a UAV overhead and I'm pretty sure it knows we're here. Tell Lieutenant Ellison that Fort Carson is compromised."

* * *

**Las Vegas**

John stirred slightly as he felt movement next to him, but remained asleep. Locked into Cameron's embrace; their arms wrapped around each other, he always felt safe, secure. The happiest, most blissful moments of John Connor's life had been spent with Cameron in his arms. Cameron heard several pairs of boots stomping on the ground, approaching their room. She disentangled herself from him and pulled away, sitting upright before getting to her feet and smoothing her clothes down to get rid of any creases. It was better, she thought, to appear as machine like as possible and let the other soldiers think of her as little more than a drone; they'd see her as less of a threat that way. The other soldiers would be able to understand her standing guard over John, but they'd react badly, she knew, if they suspected her and John being intimate.

"Cameron?" John mumbled, still asleep as he grasped at where she had been moments ago, instinctually reaching out for her.

Cameron unceremoniously tugged on the zip to his sleeping bag and pulled it open, the rush of cold air into the bag instantly awoke him and he sat bolt upright. "Cam, what the..."

"Someone's coming," Cameron said as someone banged loudly on the other side of the door. John shot up and stumbled out of his sleeping bag, trying to make himself look a bit more presentable and less like he'd only just woken up.

"Connor! Open up!" Perry's voice boomed from the other side. John glanced to Cameron, wondering what this was about now. Their eyes met and for once he couldn't read her expression; she was blank as a slate. He hated when she did that, even if she felt it was necessary. John opened the door and found himself face to face with Perry

"What, no goons this time?" Jon smirked, noting that Perry had come alone for once. He dropped his grin when he saw the deadly serious expression on Perry's face.

"Connor, we need to talk," Perry replied. John moved aside and let the captain into the room. Perry sat down on a chair next to the desk, while John sat on the couch they'd slept on until a moment ago. Cameron chose to stand. "Lieutenant Baum was attacked last night." John's face dropped like a stone as he took in Perry's words.

"Is he..." John couldn't even finish the question; not caring if he was showing any sign of weakness in front of Perry this time.

"He's alive, just," Perry answered, noticing the slight sigh of relief from John; he knew Connor and Baum were close. Their relationship was almost as much of a mystery as John and the machine that stood stock still next to him.

"What happened to him?" John asked, getting over the shock that Derek had been attacked.

" _She did,"_  Perry glared at Cameron. "She beat him almost to death last night; he never stood a chance.  _I told you_  she's dangerous."

"If I attacked Derek, he'd be dead," Cameron countered, saying nothing else to defend herself.

John grimaced in annoyance at Perry, bringing up the same argument yet again; the man was like a broken record. John was sick of people having it in for Cameron; baying for her 'blood' and now blaming her without anything to go on, just because of what she was. John realised that even though he'd felt hurt at Cameron pretending there was nothing between them when he'd wanted to have it out in the open, he realised now that she was right. They wouldn't have had a chance.

"I'm getting pissed off at the same old story, Perry," John groaned. "You come in here and shout off a load of crap without anything to back it up. She was here all night, with me."

"She was seen last night looking for Derek," Perry interrupted. "Private Benedict from Utah National Guard spoke to her last night; she was looking for him. Five minutes later, Benedict heard gunfire and ran outside to find Derek in a heap on the ground." Cameron could tell John was angry, even if he hid it well. His jaw had set in stone, nostrils flared and his eyes had narrowed after Perry had told him this new, incriminating, information.

"And you just  _assume_  it was Cameron," John countered.

"Who else is it going to be?" Perry demanded. "I'm not a moron, Connor; we all know there was no love lost between them – not that that thing can love. And I'm guessing Baum knew she was a machine all along as well. Who else would have attacked Baum, really?"

"I wouldn't put it past you or Ryan to pull this kind of stunt to set her up," John said coldly as he stood up.

" _Goddamn it, Connor,"_  Perry shouted at him, exasperated, as he rose out of his seat to meet John. Perry was actually offended that John would accuse him of sinking that low. Ryan was ranting about a coup, taking command himself because he was convinced Connor's judgement had been compromised. Although Perry agreed with that somewhat, he'd come alone and unarmed, hoping to make Connor see sense and do what needed to be done. "Baum wasn't just beaten up; he had the  _shit_  kicked out of him! He's barely alive. He fired off half a clip before he went down; no blood, no bodies. Yesterday I saw her take a blast to the face from one of those machines' mini-guns and it didn't even slow her down. Who else, Connor?  _Who else_  could have done it?"

John was speechless for a moment. Perry had a point there. Derek was the most experienced soldier in the resistance; the veteran of  _two_ Judgement Days, with enough training and skill to put most special forces to shame. It would have taken two or three men to take him out and he'd have put up a hell of a fight before going down. It didn't look good for Cameron; he didn't want to admit it but everything pointed towards Cameron being guilty. Naturally, everyone else on the base would have already come to that conclusion. Despite what John had said a moment ago, he couldn't imagine Perry going that far to get rid of Cameron. Ryan would in a heartbeat, John knew, but Perry wouldn't have stood for it. The fact that he'd come to John alone had told him that much. As much as Perry wanted Cameron gone, John knew, he wouldn't break the rules in order to do it. Perry was a nothing, if not a straight arrow.

"Connor, we all know she did it; why are you defending it? She's a liability, she's compromised. She attacked one of your best men, and you don't think we should scrap her?"

"We don't do summary justice," John answered. "And I meant what I said last night; she's the greatest asset we have, she's taken out more machines than any five guys you can name." John looked at Cameron from the corner of his eye. She just sat there, unmoving, not saying a word to defend herself. He wished she'd say something, anything, to contest Perry. Not that Perry would believe anything that came out of her mouth, but the fact she didn't even try made her seem guilty; something she didn't seem to understand. He'd have to defend her from the troops, just as she did him from the machines. It was a fair trade, he guessed.

" _I'll_  find out what happened," John said blankly to Perry as he gestured for the captain to leave. "In the meantime, keep the troops – and Ryan – in line. Don't let them do anything stupid. I'm holding  _you_  responsible if anything happens to Cameron."

"Yes,  _sir_ , Perry answered, rolling his eyes at that last part. "Just keep that thing on a short leash," Perry grumbled before he left the room and stormed off elsewhere.

John closed the door after he'd gone and turned round and picked up his assault rifle and cleaning kit, and sat down on the couch in silence as he worked; taking the weapon apart before wiping grit and carbon residue from the moving parts and then cleaning the barrel. Cameron watched him as he worked, confused as to his silence, and the fact that he didn't even look at her while he cleaned the weapon. She knew she'd made him angry; he never spoke when he was angry or upset.

"You've not spoken in eight minutes," she said nervously.

"Why, Cameron?" John said simply. Cameron stood in front of him and took his hand in hers, which he pulled away from. "Why did you sneak off last night?"

"I spoke to Derek."

"About what?" John asked.

"Last night."

"What  _about_  last night, Cameron?"

"When you defended me from Lieutenant Colonel Ryan and Captain Perry, Derek refused to help you. You were distressed because of him; I couldn't let it continue."

"So you decided to sneak off in the middle of the night – without telling me. And now Derek's been beaten almost to death..."

"I didn't do it," Cameron cut him off before he could say anything else. John said nothing more until he finished cleaning and oiling his rifle and had it reassembled.

"I'm going to see how Derek is," John finally said to her as he went to leave. Cameron got up to follow him but he turned back and stopped her. "I want you to stay away from Derek," John told her, ignoring the hurt look on her face as he spoke. Cameron didn't know what to say; she'd done what she thought was best for John, to stop Derek from causing him pain and distress. She hated seeing John upset or angry; John being unhappy made her unhappy, and her trying to help had made it worse.

John opened the door and came face to face with Davenport, hand still in the air from where he was about to knock.

"Sir, there's an urgent call for you on the radio. It's Ellison from Cheyenne."

"Thank you, Davenport," John replied. "I take it you heard about last night?"

"Yeah, it's spread round the base like wildfire," Davenport said.

"What do you think?"

"I don't buy it," Davenport said truthfully. He'd gotten to know Cameron, as much as she'd let anyone other than John know her, that was. He saw what John had meant by her being more human than he'd have ever thought, he saw how willing she seemed to make John happy, and he couldn't imagine beating the crap out of his uncle would make him particularly pleased. His gut instinct told him Cameron didn't do it, even if he couldn't come up with another explanation.

"Good, you stay here and guard Cameron," John said as he handed his rifle to Davenport before he disappeared out the door, closing it behind him.

Davenport sat down on the couch, placing the rifle on the floor as he set his sight on the coffee machine on the desk. Cameron had made it for John before she'd climbed back into his sleeping bag, as she did for John most mornings; but with Perry's arrival earlier she'd not even had the chance to offer him any.

Davenport took the mug from his canteen and poured it full of the hot black liquid, taking several packets of sugar from his own pack and emptying the contents into the brew. Davenport was considered somewhat a freak by the other soldiers, because he was the only one who actually  _liked_  army issue coffee. The others all complained it was bland and tasted like liquid cardboard, but Davenport couldn't get enough of the stuff. He had no problem admitting to anyone he had a mild caffiene addiction, as well as his well known sweet tooth.

"Want one?" Davenport raised the mug to Cameron, realising she hadn't spoken since he'd arrived.

"No," Cameron replied blankly as Davenport took a sip.

"Your loss," Davenport shrugged, taking another hit from his mug and finishing it in one go. "So..." he started, trying to make conversation with her but not knowing what the hell to say. Even now he still felt awkward around Cameron; less because she was a machine than because she was so hard to have a conversation with. He didn't know how John managed it; he guessed she only opened up when she was alone with Connor. "Looking forward to going back home?"

Cameron looked at him briefly before turning away. She didn't want to talk to anyone but John. John didn't trust her, she knew. She could see on his face and in his eyes that he didn't trust her. She realised his facial expression and the tone of his voice had been similar to the weeks and months after she'd tried to kill him. He'd been cold and impatient towards her then, but she'd been unable to fully understand his resentment at the time. Now she knew why John was angry, why he didn't trust her. But she didn't know how to make it right. She turned away from Davenport so he wouldn't see the single tear rolling down her cheek.

* * *

John marched into the airport's control tower, unconsciously returning the enthusiastic salutes the soldiers gave him. Despite everything that had happened since the end of the battle in Area 51- all of it concerning Cameron, and despite dissent amongst Perry and Ryan, the rank and file soldiers all seemed to revere John; his victory in Area 51, capturing a major Skynet base and foiling Skynet's satellite plans, stuck out to them more than any higher echelon arguments over Cameron.

"General, your Lieutenant Ellison is on the line," a corporal gestured to a seat near a large bank of radio equipment. John sat down and picked up the microphone.

"James," John started.

" _Connor, glad to hear your voice,"_  Ellison replied, the transmission so clear that he could have been in the same room as John acted as testament to the success of the Area 51 mission.  _"We've got a problem, Connor."_

"What's up?" John asked, wishing Ellison would just call him 'John.'

" _You want the bad news first, or the worse?"_

"Tell me what's going on, Ellison," John grumbled. He'd only been up a few minutes and it was already a crappy day; he couldn't see how things could get any worse. He wasn't in the mood to play games.

" _Okay, here's the bad news; we managed to hook into the satellites you and Cameron reprogrammed and found what looks like Skynet factories spread all over Colorado. We've confirmed eight smaller factories already and we've got teams out trying to confirm the rest. Skynet's been building them right under our damn noses. We've also lost contact with Jessica Morgan's unit in Denver, so we've got no news on Skynet from there."_

"And what's the worse news?" John asked, dreading what the answer could be.

" _We have reason to believe Fort Carson is compromised. A recon drone flew over last night and might have seen our men during a resupply operation."_

 _Crap,_  John thought; the only word that fit the situation right now. He'd been stupid to think things couldn't get any worse; the Area 51 mission had been screwed from start to finish. Over sixty dead, Cameron's true nature exposed, Derek being beaten nearly to death, and now _this._  John felt it all piling up on him; he didn't know how much longer he could keep going like this. Since he'd left Cheyenne Mountain things had gone from bad to worse and he felt himself losing his grip on everything. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself down, and then spoke.

"Did the supplies go out?"

" _Yeah, we sent them out once the drone had gone. But if Fort Carson's a bust, it's only a matter of time before Skynet figures out we're in Cheyenne."_

John stayed on the radio to Ellison for over an hour; he ordered a search team to head to Denver and discussed bringing in reinforcements from other units in Colorado to bolster the mountain's defences in case Skynet launched an all out attack on the mountain. The only problem with that, John knew, was it led to a siege mentality; they could beef up Cheyenne Mountain's defences all they liked, but it did nothing for their offensive campaign and left Skynet free to roam the rest of the state unchallenged.

Cheyenne Mountain was far too undermanned, and if the civilian volunteers were called on to defend the base now, they'd be torn to shreds by the machines. They needed reinforcements, but pulling in manpower from the other units in Colorado would leave them undermanned and unable to operate properly. John realised he had to return to Colorado. Ryan would be pissed but he didn't care; he was going to go back on his promise to take out Nellis air base, but Cheyenne Mountain was far more important that Las Vegas, or even Area 51. If they lost Cheyenne it would seriously damage his ability to coordinate with resistance units across the world. They'd be just as isolated as if they'd never taken Area 51; back to square one. John couldn't let that happen.

* * *

When John returned to his quarters he found Davenport sipping coffee while Cameron stared off into space, an uneasy silence between them. She looked at John as he closed the door and saw the drained, hopeless look on his face appear as soon as the door shut.

"John?"

"Skynet found our guys at Fort Carson," John explained. "Davenport, go find Perry and tell him we're going back to Colorado, today."

"I'm on it," Davenport said as he finished off the coffee and made his way out.

"Oh, and Davenport," John said just before he left the room.

"Yes sir?"

"Thank you." John hoped the lieutenant knew he meant for the night before - defending John and Cameron during the 'debate' with Ryan and Perry – as much as he meant it for guarding Cameron.

"Anytime," Davenport replied as he marched out to find Perry. Once he'd gone, John turned to Cameron again.

"I'm going to see Derek," John said.

"I'll stay here," Cameron offered, remembering that John wanted her to stay away from Derek.

"No, you're coming with me. Cameron, you stay with me at all times from now on," John said coldly.

"You've never given me an order before," Cameron replied, a little hurt. She'd gladly follow any order John gave her, but she'd felt special that he'd always made a point to never order her and treated her as an equal, and now that was gone.

"I've never  _had to_  before," John sighed. He was livid at Cameron for going behind his back and taking things into her own hands like that; they'd been a team for so long now, shared everything with each other and kept no secrets – classified future information notwithstanding, and she'd betrayed his trust. He was angry, and very upset with both her and himself. He'd sworn he'd never give her an order; she wasn't one of his soldiers, nor was she simply a machine, like Derek and his mom had always thought. He loved her and saw her as a partner, not a subordinate. He'd crossed a line he never thought he'd cross, and he felt a white hot stab of guilt in his chest because of it. He had to force himself to push it down and ignore it for now; Cameron's feelings were the least of his worries at the moment.

John threw open the door and stepped out into the corridor. Cameron went to grab her rifle and gear when John stopped her.

"No guns, Cameron. I don't want you armed." Cameron's eyes fell to the floor. John didn't trust her anymore, she knew. She didn't know what she'd done wrong; she'd tried to help John, tried to stop Derek from causing John any more stress, and now John didn't trust her. She cared nothing for what anyone else though; only John. His last comment snapped something inside her, however. She shoved John roughly and pinned him against he wall.

"What the hell?" John asked, incredulous.

"You don't trust me," Cameron said blankly. Her machine eyes glowed bright blue with anger behind the deep brown organic orbs, causing John to swallow nervously. Even though she'd never actually harm him, she'd could still make him hurt badly; he painfully remembered the mother of all slaps she'd given him for getting himself shot, but her anger had been justified then; he'd been in the wrong.

"Why should I trust you?" John asked her. "You lied to me."

"I trust you."

" _I'm_  not the one sneaking off at night, Cameron."

"I tried to help. I spoke to Derek..."

" _And look what happened!"_  John snapped back at her. "Derek's lying half dead in that infirmary and almost everyone here wants you dead."

"I didn't hurt Derek," Cameron insisted. John didn't bother replying; he just pushed her out of the way and walked out.

Cameron quickly followed John and caught up, keeping her face as blank as possible and saying nothing as she fell into line just behind him. She wanted to make it right, to make him trust her again. If he didn't trust her, then he couldn't love her any more, she thought. She ran over dozens of possible scenarios in her mind to come up with a way of making it perfect between them again, but she came up with nothing. She struggled to suppress her tear ducts so she wouldn't cry. John would probably think she was simulating it, anyway, she thought.

In silence the pair marched down to the airport's tiny infirmary, crammed full of soldiers with injuries of varying degrees; ranging from minor shrapnel wounds and broken bones to third degree burns, bullet wounds, and severed limbs; all casualties of John's attack on Area 51 – a painful reminder of how costly this war was already.

None of the guilt John felt at seeing men under his command bloodied and broken even compared to what he felt at the last bed he saw at the end of the room. Derek lay unconscious, beaten to a pulp. His face was a swollen mess of purple-blue bruises and ugly red lacerations. Bandages wrapped around his head indicated some kind of injury, and John could only hope that it wasn't fatal. The rest of Derek's body hadn't fared very well, either. His torso had been stripped of clothing and bandages covered his chest; his right leg was held in place by a makeshift splint and wrapped up in yet more bandages.

John found himself unable to say anything until an army doctor approached.

"Is he going to pull through?" John asked.

"I think so," the doctor replied, causing John to exhale slightly in relief. "He's in a bad state; he's got a major concussion and hairline fracture to the skull, five broken ribs, soft tissue damage all over his body, and his leg's broken in two places. He went down swinging," the medic said, glaring at Cameron.

"When will he wake up?" Cameron asked.

"Why do you care," he snorted in reply, voice dripping with disgust.

"Answer her question," John snapped angrily. He'd had more than enough crap to deal with today without some smartass doctor adding his two cents.

"It could be five minutes, it could be a week. I don't know."

"Did he say anything when he was brought in?" John asked.

"As a matter of fact, he did. He was barely conscious but he was mumbling about 'the metal.' I think we all know who  _that_  is," the doctor again glared hatefully at Cameron, who just returned a blank stare to the man until he turned away, freaked out slightly by Cameron's blank gaze. John knew from experience that nobody could beat a Terminator in a staring contest.

Before John could tell the doctor to back off, Ryan – one arm in a sling after Cameron had crushed his hand - burst through the doors and made a beeline for John and Cameron. "Connor! Why isn't that tin can scrap yet?"

" _I'm_ in charge here," John retorted. " _You_ follow  _my_  orders! _"_ It wasn't lost on John that he'd had to pull rank more in the few days they'd been in Las Vegas than the three and a half months since Judgement Day.

"What's wrong with you?" Ryan demanded. "That... _thing_  nearly kills one of your best men and you keep it alive? Not only that, but it's not even under guard, for crying out loud."

"We don't know who did this," John said evenly.

"Derek's awake," Cameron said, being the only one to notice his stirring. It took a long moment for Derek to open his eyes; he'd been given plenty of morphine to dull the pain, not that it helped much. He felt like another Judgement Day had gone off, this time located entirely inside his skull. He tried to sit up but couldn't find the strength. He gave up after his second attempt and settled for staying put.

"Derek, you okay?" John asked.

"Where... where am I?"

"The infirmary – or what passes for one around here," John answered, earning an angry stare from Ryan for insulting his home.

"This is the worst hangover I've ever had," Derek tried to joke – a rare occurrence for the usually bitter resistance fighter, but it raised a slight smile from John.

"At least your nose isn't broken this time."

"Must be the only thing that  _isn't,"_  Derek replied, chuckling slightly until his ribs dug into his lungs, causing searing pain in his chest and forcing him into a coughing fit for several minutes. John moved to help him but Derek feebly pushed him back.

"Derek; what happened last night?" John asked when he settled down again. "Who attacked you?"

Derek closed his eyes, struggling to remember what happened. His head was killing him and he felt nauseous as hell. In all the years he'd spent fighting machines with the resistance in the future, he'd never been hurt so badly before; he briefly wondered if something in his brain had come loose as he tried to remember, but eventually it came to him. He remembered bright glowing eyes moving towards him, lightning quick, striking out with speed and strength far beyond anything human.

"The metal," Derek answered, and all eyes fell on Cameron.


	15. Truth and Betrayal

"I told you, Connor," Ryan chided as he reached for his radio. "This is Ryan; I want a fully armed squad to the sick bay ASAP."

"Back off!" John snarled at the lieutenant colonel. "Cancel that order."

 _"What?_  You heard him yourself, the metal did it."

Derek saw John trying his hardest to defend the cyborg. John had twice threatened his life to protect Cameron and would try again here with Ryan. He'd never stand a chance against a fully armed squad; they'd pin him to the floor and riddle the machine with thermite rounds until it fell down and stayed there. After years of hate and mistrust of the metal, and several attempts to destroy it – for John's own good – he finally now had the opportunity to be rid of it once and for all, and all he had to do was keep quiet.

He couldn't do it, he realised. John loved it more than anything else, and watching it die might possibly destroy him. And if John found out later that it had all happened on a lie, nothing would save him; John would murder him with his bare hands. Derek knew the truth had to come out.

"Not  _that_  metal," Derek groaned reluctantly. All attention turned from Cameron to the invalid form of Derek 'Baum' Reese.

"Come again?" The doctor asked.

"Not that metal," Derek nodded at Cameron. "The other one..."

* * *

 _While most of the soldiers quietly celebrated their victory against Skynet inside the walls of the airport, Derek stood to with full combat gear, lying prone on the open ground at the south end of the runway, assault rifle at the ready and searching the darkness through his night site for any approaching threats. As far as Derek was concerned the biggest threat was_ inside _the airport; Cameron, the metal bitch. Even if she never went bad again, never did anything to harm John, simply her being there was already causing dissent in the ranks. It was the same problem John had in the future; he'd been too close to the metals and it disturbed people. People had been horrified that Future John treated metal the same as he did humans. Better than he did humans, Derek thought, given that many human soldiers seemed to be little more than cannon fodder, whereas metal were given special status because they were so 'useful.' It was that kind of behaviour and John's utter trust in the machines that had made some question his judgement, and this John was repeating the same mistakes._

_Derek had decided he wouldn't help John when the machine was inevitably exposed, and he'd stuck by that call. John would have to learn the hard way not to get attached to metal, but he'd learn. Perhaps when Perry and that Ryan idiot were through with the machine, John would learn how futile having any feelings for a cyborg really was. Derek knew John would be pissed with him for a while, but it was for his own good. He'd see that one day and thank him._

_The_ crunch  _of a stone cracking underfoot behind him caught Derek's attention and he spun around, jumping to his feet with his rifle ready to shoot. Derek came face to face with Cameron and relaxed slightly, he held his rifle not quite pointed away at her, just in case she decided to attack him._

_"Oh, it's you," Derek grumbled. "They didn't put you down, then?"_

_"No," Cameron said. "They tried to."_

_"So what, are you here to kill me?"_

_"No," Cameron answered as she approached. Derek just barely managed to push down the urge to empty his magazine into her. Alone at night, just the two of them; he could waste her right now, blast her apart with his rifle and then pull the chip out and melt her down with thermite. She'd just disappear and he could claim ignorance. Derek pulled himself out of his daydreaming, knowing at this point it was nothing but fantasy._

_"So, what do you want? Did John send you," Derek glared at her._

_"To talk," Cameron answered blankly. "And no, John didn't send me." She stood less than a metre from Derek, facing him. At that distance she could easily grab Derek and snap his neck, rip his head off, whatever twisted thing crossed her mind first._

_"Since when do you just want to talk?" Derek snorted._

_"Since now," Cameron replied simply. Perhaps out of nothing more than idle curiosity, Derek decided to hear Cameron out._

_"Okay, fire away," Derek said._

_"I don't have a gun."_

_"Metals," Derek mumbled under his breath, exasperated. "It means tell me what's on your mind; or chip, in your case."_

_"I know, I was joking," Cameron said. When Derek looked at her with a mixture of irritation and confusion, she realised she still didn't understand humour. She didn't get jokes, even though she'd tried. John had said she'd understand eventually; she wasn't so sure. "John's upset," she changed the subject._

_"And that's my problem, how?" Derek sneered._

_"You refused to help him."_

_"You mean I refused to put in a good word for you; are you surprised?" Derek asked._

_"No, but it would help John if you did. He's stressed. Ryan and Perry can't be trusted; he needs you."_

_"Yeah," Derek shot back. "He does; but he doesn't need a tin can messing with his head."_

_"I'm not 'messing with his head.' I love John and he loves me," Cameron said, allowing a slight trace of insistence in her voice as she spoke. Derek picked up on it but shrugged it off; she was trying to manipulate him, just like she was with John. He felt sick to the core that the machine pretended to love him; worse still that John actually did love her._

_"John needs both of us," Cameron continued. "You're his uncle, he needs you."_

_"And he doesn't need you," Derek snapped back at her. "He's better off without you; if you weren't just wires and programming, you'd see that. John got along fine in the future before you came along."_

_"Future John was broken," Cameron answered. Derek knew what Cameron meant by 'broken.' He'd only met Connor a handful of times in the future and he'd always had a thousand yard stare. He'd looked through people rather than at them, and he'd never once shown an ounce of emotion; people had started to wonder if John Connor was actually metal. But the man was a brilliant tactician, and under his command humanity had eventually gained the upper hand on Skynet. The war had just about turned in their favour when Derek was sent back._

_The tin can was messing with John's emotions, making him love her; clouding his judgement._

_"You're here to protect John?" Derek asked. Cameron simply nodded yes. "Maybe you should protect him from_ you. _How can he become 'Future John' if you're making him weak? You're preventing that_ ,  _just as much as if you killed him."_

_"I won't allow John to become Future John," Cameron replied. Derek tightened his grip on his rifle and was about to demand an explanation from her, when she continued. "John is happy with me, Future John was unhappy. My John is more effective than Future John; he's made more progress."_

_Derek had to admit she was right; in his time, the resistance hadn't reached the level it was now until 2022; nearly a year after escaping from Century. Future John had done a lot in the five years since, but his nephew had managed to do just as much in a matter of months. Even though he didn't like it, the machine had a point. It still made him sick the way she referred to him as_ 'her John.'

_"So you're doing this to make John more effective?" Derek asked. He still couldn't believe he was having a civilised conversation with her; he hadn't even called her a tin can yet._

_"No," Cameron insisted, with a little too much emotion in her voice this time for Derek's liking. "John would still be effective without me; I want John to be happy." Derek laughed humourlessly at that but her cold glare cut him short and sent a chill down his spine._

_"So you want to keep John from becoming like his future self because in the future, John's alone and miserable, and you don't want him to end up the same?"_

_"Yes," Cameron answered._

_"Did Future John tell you to do that?"_

_"No, he only assigned me to protect him," Cameron said, which was mostly true; Future John had wanted her to protect not just John's life, but his soul; but he'd wanted her to figure it out for herself and choose to do it of her own accord._

_"So you're... choosing to do this? And you want me to help you?"_

_"I want John to be happy, and I need your help."_

_Derek was close to laughing out loud at the absurdity of all this, working alongside her, encouraging John to keep her around. Though he'd managed to work with her before; he'd been able to put aside what she was and his hatred towards her when they'd had a job to do. Sarah had once even said – whilst slightly drunk and celebrating a particularly successful mission - that they made a good team together. Derek had threatened to knock her teeth out if she ever said it again._

_"John is happy with me," Cameron elaborated. "If I die, John will be unhappy, and then he'll be Future John."_ Damn that machine logic, _Derek mentally cursed her. Part of him knew she was right, though. John was so attached to Cameron now that if she were destroyed, John would be devastated; he might never recover._

_Derek had never felt so torn; as a soldier, he wanted John to be all he could be, to be the leader his future self was. Future John had all but won the war; Skynet's defence grid was smashed and Connor had been marshalling troops and equipment for the final assault on Skynet's last few strongholds. If John became that man he was guaranteed to beat Skynet; he'd win. But as John's uncle, he really didn't want John to become that hollow, unfeeling automaton that Future John was. He mulled it over for a long moment, while Cameron just stood silently and watched him. He thought it was funny that the machine was the one trying to keep John more human, while he'd advocated allowing John to become his future self; becoming more like a machine._

_"Fine," Derek grumbled, eventually breaking the silence. "What do you want me to do?" He dreaded her answer._

_"Support John, don't try to stop our relationship."_

_"Don't talk about it in front of me," Derek moaned. He decided he was willing to call a truce with her for John's sake, but he still didn't want their 'relationship,' as she called it, rammed down his throat. He was convinced Sarah would be turning in her grave at John being in love with a machine; she'd probably come back and haunt him for this._

_"Deal," Derek sighed. Cameron extended her right hand to him, clearly expecting him to shake it. "That's asking too much," Derek said. Cameron withdrew her hand and let it hang by her side. "I'm doing this for John. I won't try to scrap you and I won't try to stop your relationship - sick as it is. But we're not friends; we'll_ never _be friends, get it?"_

_"Yes, I 'get it'," Cameron replied. "Thank you, Derek Reese." With that, Cameron turned and walked off, back towards the airport entrance. Derek was taken aback for a moment by someone actually calling him by his real name; he'd been 'Derek Baum' since Sarah had died. It was nice to be called Reese, even if by the tin can. He quickly snapped out of it and turned his attention back to the airport perimeter, trying to crush the slight measure of respect growing inside him for the machine._

_"Fucking metal bitch," Derek grumbled._

_A faint rustling to his right drew Derek's attention. He snapped his HK G36 around in a heartbeat, but was still too slow. An all too familiar shape surged forward from the darkness with glowing eyes, mere feet away and rapidly getting closer as it lunged at him. Derek fired a burst from his rifle and yelled out in sheer aggression just as a powerful coltan fist slammed hard into his face._

_"Metal bastard!"_ _Derek was floored by the punch but held on to his rifle and managed to roll to his knees and shoulder the weapon, ignoring the crack he felt as his cheek was most likely broken. He pulled the trigger and held it down, spraying fire at the machine, all the while in denial about what he was seeing; Cromartie was dead, the tin can said she'd wasted him. Cromartie took the point blank hailstorm as if Derek were firing a water gun at him, grabbed Derek's gun and slammed it backwards into the side of his head, cracking him in the jaw and knocking him to the ground once again._

_Cromartie raised a foot to stamp on Derek's head, intent on crushing him like an insect, but Derek had fought enough machines in the future to know a few tricks. As Cromartie raised his foot Derek sprung off the ground and barged into the Triple 8's other leg, toppling him over like a bowling pin. Derek grunted with the pain at the impact but got back to his feet in an instant and drew his sidearm. He fired off several rounds at the machine's head, aiming for the chip port, before Cromartie got back up and punched him in the chest, snapping Derek's ribs and crushing them against his lungs. Derek fell to the ground, gasping for air as his ribs pressed down on lungs, constricting them._

_Derek spotted his rifle on the ground, only a few feet away, and made one desperate lunge for it, hoping it would be enough to put Cromartie down. Cromartie's reflexes were far superior to Derek's however, and he stamped down on Derek's leg as he tried to move, pinning him down and breaking both bones in his lower leg. Derek screamed out in pain but still struggled for the rifle until Cromartie picked him up by the throat and held him at eye level._

_"Where is John Connor?" Cromartie asked. "Is he inside?"_

_"Fuck you," Derek spat._

_"Is the TOK with him? How many men does he have?"_

_"Thousands," Derek replied sarcastically. "He's got a whole army with him."_

_"You're lying."_

_"Fuck you," Derek repeated. That was all this metal piece of crap would get from him. Cromartie decided he had no more use for Derek and squeezed harder, choking him. Derek fumbled with his holster and managed to pull out his second sidearm, he fired into the air, hoping someone inside heard the gunfire._

_Cromartie heard the sound of men approaching from inside the building and dropped Derek to the ground and sprinted towards the perimeter fence. Not knowing how many men he faced or what kind of weapons they had, he decided the best course of action was to retreat._

_Derek lay on the ground, barely conscious from lack of air and his sustained injuries. He couldn't find the energy to get up and he felt himself slowly slipping away. His vision was blurred and he was starting to black out. He heard men running towards him, heard voices but he couldn't make out what they were saying._

_"The metal..." Derek tried to warn them about who and what was out there, the danger they were all in, but he couldn't even string a sentence together. "The... metal..." Derek's head dropped to the side and his eyes rolled to the back of his head as his body decided it had had enough and consciousness abandoned him._

* * *

"Cromartie," Derek coughed out. "It was Cromartie."

"Don't even say it!" John cried, exasperated. "Cameron killed him."

"Cromartie could have survived," Cameron replied. She'd been too preoccupied with keeping John alive to properly check that Cromartie had been terminated. He'd not gotten back up after she'd thrown him into the flames in the hangar and followed up with a grenade and a whole magazine of thermite rounds. Before she'd developed emotions she would have been more thorough and checked. But she'd been too worried about John at the time; he'd been her only concern.

"Then what's he been doing all this time?" John thought out loud, knowing that neither Cameron nor Derek would have the answer to that.

"Excuse me, Connor," Ryan interrupted. "You're telling me this metal bitch didn't attack him," he gestured at Derek. "And there's  _another_  one of these things running around?  _How many more of these Goddamn things are there?"_

"Just the one," John said evenly. He thought it better not to tell them there could be others lurking around; there was no way he could know how many Terminators Skynet had sent back in time, nor how many survived Judgement Day and were still operational. Telling everyone there could be any number of machines out there that could pass for human would simply cause mass hysteria; they weren't ready to know about Terminators just yet.

"What the hell do these things want?" Ryan demanded.

"That one out there - Cromartie – wants to kill me. Cameron's on our side," John explained, hoping that last part would eventually sink into their skulls.

"Are you going to tell us why it's after you?" Ryan asked impatiently. "Or why we've even got a machine  _supposedly_  on our side? Or where the hell they're even from?"

"You've heard of classified, right?" John asked. Even though Ryan was just a reservist he'd have had to have signed a non disclosure agreement before joining the National Guard, and would know at least something about how classified information worked.

"Yeah, but..."

"Well, that's what this is;  _classified._  Its need to know, and  _you_  don't need to know," John said sternly. "Now I've got to work out how we're going to take care of this. Double the perimeter security and order them to shoot anyone suspicious on sight. Make sure they've all got thermite rounds and 203 grenades." John nodded to the doctor and then to Derek, turned on his heel and walked out of the makeshift infirmary and back towards his quarters. Cameron followed closely behind him and waited until they were back in the room with the door closed before she spoke.

"John..."

"What, Cameron?" John sighed.

Cameron didn't understand; Derek had told him she was innocent yet he was still angry with her. She didn't understand it and she definitely didn't like it. She didn't know what she'd done wrong; as far as she could tell, John had no reason to be angry at her. He was treating her like he used to, knowing it would hurt. She wouldn't allow it any more. He'd told her to stand up for herself. She grabbed him by his shirt and lifted him the air. John struggled to get out of her grip; it was obvious that she was supremely pissed off and he was both the cause of it and the target for her to vent on.

"I didn't attack Derek, but you're still angry with me." John was shocked at the forceful, accusing tone in her voice, but he wasn't going to just let this slide. "Let me go!" To his surprise, she complied, dropping him so he landed hard on his ass.

"Why the hell did you do that?"

"You told me to," Cameron replied blankly, reminding John of Uncle Bob when he'd done the same before they'd broken Sarah out of Pescadero. "I have to follow your orders." John picked up on what she meant; he'd upset her when he'd given her the order to stay at his side. But he was just as upset for her getting herself into so much trouble. He'd defend her 'til his dying breath, but she'd gone and made that job even harder.

"Yes, I'm still angry," John met her accusation as he picked himself up off the floor. He'd let Cameron dropping him to the floor slide; she still had outbursts when her developing emotions ran high, something she hadn't yet learned to control.

"Derek said I didn't do it." Cameron insisted.

"I know!" John snapped. "I never doubted you, Cameron; I believed you the whole time." Not quite the whole truth; John had believed her innocence completely until Derek said 'the metal' attacked him. His heart had sunk then – Cameron's guilt would have spelt certain death; Ryan would have blown her away without mercy.

"Why are you angry with me?" Cameron demanded.

"You really want to know, Cameron?" John asked. Cameron didn't get why he asked that; she wouldn't have asked him if she didn't want to know. Although she felt a sense of anger rising at John for treating her as he did, she was also afraid she'd done something wrong that she hadn't realised, and she needed to know.

"I trusted you, and you went off to talk to Derek while I was asleep. You didn't think I'd want to know? They _hate_  you," John swept his arm out, indicating the whole base. "They all want you dead; they were looking for the slightest excuse and you gave it to them on a plate! Jesus, Cameron; it's all I can do to keep them from killing you right now."

It wasn't just that she'd gone off to see Derek. She couldn't have picked a worse time to get into trouble; everyone hated her for being a machine and things were all starting to pile up on John; the huge losses and Cameron's exposure, and resulting dissent from Ryan and Perry, and questions about his judgement. Cameron's landing herself in hot water had added more weight to the already unbearable burden bearing down on his shoulders.

"You still don't trust me," Cameron replied, staring at the wall, not wanting to meet John's eyes. "You ordered me to stay away from Derek, to not be armed. You put me under guard because you didn't want me to leave. You don't trust me."

"Not you,  _them!"_  John cried out, almost at his wits end trying to get her to understand. "Why do you think I asked  _Davenport_  to guard you? Not to keep you from getting out, to stop anyone else trying to get  _in._ I did it to protect you, Cam. Why do you think I ordered you to stay with me?"

"To watch me," Cameron answered. "To know what I was doing."

"No, Cam," John said, starting to understand why she was so upset, but he needed her to understand why he was, as well. And why he'd had to give her that order. "Remember what Perry did this morning? He came here alone, begged me to kill you. He wants you dead, Cameron, they all do, but they won't do it in front of me. I can't keep you safe if you go off alone. Seriously, Cam, you've got to learn this stuff."

Cameron thought she understood; John was angry because of his concern for her. But he still didn't seem to trust her. Her emotions were still stilted slightly and she didn't always understand what she felt, but she'd felt something between them break when he'd given her that order. John couldn't trust her; she'd put herself in more danger and potentially compromised John's standing with the other soldiers. He'd always fight for her; she knew that. He'd told her many times before that he'd die for her, just as she would for him. But he was more important. Sometimes John didn't see that; Cameron knew that John would defend her, even if doing so meant ultimately risking his position as the leader of the resistance, or even his life. Cameron couldn't allow that to happen; John was too important, and their relationship was making his life more difficult. Her presence was making John's life difficult. Cameron knew that if she were no longer with John, the other soldiers would have more trust in his command; though she needed to be around John now that Cromartie was still functional. She wanted to be with John; not just to protect him, but because he was her best and only friend. She only felt comfortable around John, and his was the only opinion she cared about. John's needs took priority over hers, though, and she thought about her voluntary mission to keep him from becoming like Future John. She calculated that, given the hostility shown towards her by most of the soldiers, the odds were extremely high that she would be terminated; either defending John or by someone in the resistance. Their relationship actually increased the chances of her being killed, even if no one ever found out about them; everyone still saw she was close to John and they didn't like it.

Her death – and she saw it as death, now that she could feel – would undoubtedly be devastating to John and could potentially traumatise him so much that he'd suppress all emotion to mask the pain – making him the same as Future John. If they weren't so close, if they weren't together, if he stopped loving her, it might not be as painful for him.

"We should end our relationship," Cameron said. She didn't know how much it would hurt her to say it; she had to consciously close her tear ducts to prevent herself from crying.

Cameron's words hit John like a tonne of bricks; he'd never have thought that Cameron would want to end things between them.

"Why?" John asked. Though really, he knew why; he'd been too harsh to her. She'd only been trying to help him; she'd done what she thought was the best course of action – and if Derek hadn't have been attacked, it might have been. Sometimes he forgot she was still learning, still a cyborg and not human; what came naturally to him was often completely alien to her – she still had a lot to learn, and he'd promised long ago that he'd help her.

He needed to tell her he was sorry, that he loved her, to ask for another chance. He'd do it right this time.

 _"Connor, this is Ryan, I need to see you_ now!" John groaned as the lieutenant colonel's voice crackled over the radio; the pompous little bastard's timing couldn't have been worse. He was sorely tempted to throw his radio out the window. Still, it sounded urgent; maybe someone had spotted Cromartie. John instantly buried his burning pain and donned the mask of the general.

"Where are you?" He asked.

_"Inside hangar one."_

"I'll be there in two minutes," John replied. He wanted nothing more than to stay where he was and try to sort things with Cameron; but sadly, he knew his duty came first. "Come on, Cameron." John grabbed his rifle and moved to leave when Cameron grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the room. He thought for a moment she wanted to talk about their relationship. He hoped that was the case; he hated leaving it hanging like this.

"Put this on," Cameron handed him his bulky helmet. "Cromartie could be nearby." The helmet would offer very little protection from rifle bullets, Cameron knew. A direct hit would still penetrate, but if it hit at an angle it might provide some protection. And the helmet obscured his visual profile by eighteen percent; Cromartie would have to match his face to the profile in his memory to at least ninety five percent before he took a shot and exposed his position to the soldiers – that's what Cameron would do.

John nodded his thanks, trying to push down the pain that stabbed deep down in his chest.

"We'll talk about this later," John said to her, albeit without much hope. Cameron, being a Terminator, was more stubborn than a mule once she'd made her mind up. John felt a real sense of fear that Cameron meant it when she said they should split up, and that nothing he could say or do would change her mind.

The pair of them walked out of the room, down the corridor that overlooked the departure lounge and down the stairs towards the building's exit. Once outside, they marched in silence towards the hangars on the other end of the runway. As they got closer John could see dozens of troops loading up and fuelling vehicles; tanks, Bradleys, Strykers, and Humvees. All of 4th Infantry were present, as was Ryan, who was arguing bitterly with Perry. He watched for a moment as his two most senior commanders bickered like schoolchildren, unaware that he and Cameron were there.

"Connor says to pack up, so we're packing up," John heard the tail end of Perry's reply.

"Damn Connor!" Ryan snapped. "He doesn't know what he's doing; keeping that tin can around is proof enough. Now I'm ordering you to stop, _captain."_

"John is in charge," Cameron stated, drawing heads towards her and John. Every single one of them snapped to attention when they realised John was present.

"As you were," John set them back to their tasks. He hated the whole saluting thing; he wasn't a proper general and didn't stand on ceremony one bit. "What was that, Ryan?" John challenged him, knowing Ryan was likely to make a bid to get rid of him and wanting to nip this in the bud.

"Connor, what the hell are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" John asked. Ryan was upset with John over so many things now it was hard to keep track.

"You're leaving us," Ryan elaborated. "All the other units are leaving as well; going back to Utah and Arizona and leaving us  _defenceless_. What about Nellis? What about that machine? You're nothing but a lie, Connor; pathetic, a joke. You're not fit to lead, so I'm taking over as ranking officer." He turned to Perry. "Now get your men away from those tanks, captain!"

John paused for a moment, took a deep breath to calm his nerves and just barely resisted the temptation to shoot Ryan somewhere very painful.

"'Ranking officer,' huh?" John said thoughtfully. Ryan was right, there. Without him, Ryan was in charge; the thought sent a chill running down John's spine. That had to change. "Perry," John looked straight at the burly, dark skinned captain, drawing his attention from staring daggers at Ryan. "You're now a full colonel; congratulations. Carry on." Perry might have been a self centred ass, and as big a hater of Cameron as Ryan, but the man wasn't a coward, he knew how to fight, and he was a straight arrow. Any challenges from Perry would be direct and not some under the table deal that John  _knew_  Ryan had tried to make the instant Cameron was exposed as a cyborg.

John turned to Ryan as Perry and the other soldiers kept working on their vehicles, getting them ready to depart. "Skynet's found Cheyenne Mountain," John exaggerated. The recon drone Ellison reported had only been over Fort Carson, but John knew it was only a matter of time until Skynet realised Cheyenne Mountain was active, if it hadn't already. "If Cheyenne falls, we're screwed; we might as well have let Skynet launch its satellites."

"So you're just leaving?" Ryan demanded, still livid that John was abandoning them now. Clearly all the stories about John Connor he'd heard before meeting the man were wildly exaggerated. The reality was a disappointment, to say the least.

"No," John replied, to Ryan's Perry's, and Cameron's surprise. "Perry will lead 4th Infantry back to Colorado; Cameron and I are staying here. Cromartie's still on the loose out there and we've got to take care of him."

"What about Nellis?" Ryan snapped. Connor had promised him he'd take out the base, and Ryan was intent on making sure he kept that promise.

"Cromartie's a bigger threat than Nellis air base," Cameron answered, taking the words right out of John's mouth before he could speak.

"A bigger threat than  _you?"_  Ryan shot back at her, cradling his broken hand as it throbbed in memory of Cameron's less than tender ministrations.

"Shut up, Ryan," John barked. "They're going and that's the end of it. I also ordered your Apaches and F-16s to take off for Area 51, they're heading there later.

"I can't believe this," Ryan moaned. "You're telling me that not only are you leaving us here, but you're taking away our air power?"

"No," John answered tersely. "I want you and all your men to head to Area 51 as well and set up base there. You've got a lot more here than most people do," John said, thinking of how many resistance units he'd set up that had little more than small arms, but still pulled their weight fighting Skynet regardless. "You should appreciate it."

Ryan excused himself and all but stormed off like a brooding teenager. Connor had lost his mind, Ryan knew; he couldn't be trusted to lead them. The machine had clearly poisoned his mind and clouded his judgement. He might have beaten Skynet at Area 51 - something Ryan believed was down to the skill of the men rather than their commander – who clearly seemed to have a god complex.

Ryan knew he had to do something before Connor took them all to hell with him. Connor had come to Las Vegas promising to help, promising that his actions would benefit all of them. Instead he'd usurped Ryan's command, pulled them into his battle and got a score of Ryan's men killed, probably made Skynet all too aware of their presence, and led another machine after him; this one intent on his blood, and if Connor and his tin can were to be believed, a machine far more dangerous than anything Nellis could throw at them. Judging from Cameron's actions, Ryan thought that this other one, Cromartie – he had no clue why Connor gave these things names – could and would wipe them all out just to get to Connor.

Connor had brought that danger to Las Vegas when he'd promised them salvation. It was unforgiveable. Ryan knew he had to put a stop to Connor, but how? The metal with him, clearly a bodyguard, wouldn't allow anything to happen to him. Nobody else had the guts to act against Connor. Oh, Perry stood up to him, tried to convince Connor to let them take it out; but the man was too afraid to act any further without Connor's consent. Ryan was alone; the rank and file, despite finding out about the machine bitch, still loved Connor; he gave them a victory and they'd lapped it up, unable to see the truth. Nobody else had the balls to get rid of him... except the machine they called Cromartie.


	16. A Deal With The Devil

John and Cameron were alone in their temporary quarters, packing their gear back into their packs and making ready to move. John was packing, at least, while Cameron cleaned and oiled her weapons. They'd spent over an hour discussing the best way to find and kill Cromartie, making plans and going over the risks and effectiveness, and what the risks were for each. John's first thought was to mobilise every man and woman in the Las Vegas unit and scour the city to hunt him down. Cameron had shot down that idea by informing John that given the size of the city, the numbers and resources they had at their disposal, and the fact that – according to Ryan – Skynet sent HKs on regular search patrols above the city, and the fact that infiltrators were also excellent at hiding, that a man hunt was impractical.

John had also considered scrambling the F-16s and Apaches into the air to perform aerial reconnaissance, whilst directing search parties towards Cromartie's position. Again, Cameron told him it couldn't be done; there were bound to still be survivors still living and hiding throughout the city, and it would be impossible for the pilots to tell them from Cromartie.

After throwing several plans at Cameron, most of which she threw back - much to John's annoyance – John realised he was looking at it the wrong way. Cameron was right; Terminators were the  _hunters_  – not the  _hunted._ Instead of hunting down Cromartie, they'd let him come to them; ambush.

Unfortunately, neither John nor Cameron knew Las Vegas; which left them dependent on Ryan's cooperation, which was why John had grudgingly called the lieutenant colonel to meet with them as soon as he could. Ryan had replied noncommittally, not saying when he'd arrive, but John didn't really care; he needed some time alone with Cameron to try and fix things between them. He looked over to her; she kept her face down, concentrating on the rifle as she methodically cleaned the grime and carbon residue from the working parts, seemingly ignoring him.

"Cameron, stop," John said to her as he put down his bag and sat on the faux leather couch that had served as their bed for the last few days. Cameron looked up from cleaning her rifle but carried on.

"We need to be ready, John," Cameron replied blankly as she continued with her tender ministrations of the weapon.

"Cameron, a few minutes won't hurt.  _Please."_

On hearing the desperate and urging tone in John's voice, Cameron stopped what she was doing and looked up at John expectantly. She sat down by John when he patted the space next to him on the couch, sinking down into the cushioned seat.

"Cam, I'm sorry about earlier, okay. I shouldn't have been so angry at you. I know you were trying to help; I just couldn't bear to think of what they'd have tried to do if Derek hadn't told them the truth."

"I understand," Cameron replied. "Thank you for apologising."

"No, you  _don't_  understand," John insisted, taking one of her slender hands in his and squeezing gently. "I don't want to end things between us, Cam. I  _need_ you. I'm sorry." John knew how pathetic and desperate he sounded right then, but he didn't care. Cameron wouldn't ever judge him, no matter what happened between them. And he didn't care how weak he sounded, or what Derek or even Sarah would have thought if they'd heard him now, begging for her not to end things between them.

"I need you, Cameron. I can't do this without you; I don't even  _want_  to do this without you."

"You should stay focussed, John," Cameron answered as she pulled her hand away from his. She didn't want to do this; she wanted everything to be okay between her and John, to make everything okay between them, but Cromartie was out there and they needed to eliminate him first. Cameron forced herself to suppress her feelings and concentrate on the mission; she knew humans couldn't do that – Future John notwithstanding – and knew that John would dwell over their relationship, which he couldn't afford to do.

"You can't be distracted, John." She continued. "Concentrate on the mission."

 _"Screw_ the mission, Cameron," John shot back. "It can wait five minutes. Please, we need to work this out."

"I told you, John; we should end our relationship. It's for the best."

"Is that what you really want?" John asked, locking eyes with her as he took her hand once more. This time she didn't pull away. Cameron liked it when he held her hand. When they hugged, kissed, made love. Any kind of tactile contact between them made her happy. Whenever they were together; either in rapt ecstasy or simply sat together holding hands and talking, she was happy. It was the only thing – other than seeing John happy – that made her feel good. He was the centre of her universe and her existence revolved around him; not simply because he was her mission, but because he was the only one who could truly understand and love her. He made her feel special. She knew he'd even die for her. And that was what it came down to for her.

Cameron knew that the chances were high she'd either die defending John from machines, or that someone in the resistance would kill her. And that either way, John wouldn't hesitate to risk his own life to save her. She couldn't allow that to happen.

"It doesn't matter what I want," Cameron answered after a long pause. "I'm a machine." She remembered telling him once that machines can't be happy. She thought that she'd been wrong; John made her happy. But she had to cast aside her own feelings and wants for John's own good. She reluctantly pulled her hand away and got up, snapping her rifle back together and placing it on the desk. "We should organise the ambush soon," she said, looking out the window. "It's getting dark."

"Cameron," John got up after her and pulled her arm so she spun round to face him – something she allowed him to do. He held her shoulders and looked pleadingly into her eyes, his own were near tears as she unknowingly ripped his heart out. "At least... can we talk about this later, after we've taken care of Cromartie?"

"Yes," Cameron answered simply. She knew John would try to talk her round, but her decision was made. But she could explain to John why it was necessary to end their relationship. She had considered lying to John; to tell him she felt nothing and had been manipulating him the whole time. If she could make him hate her, he wouldn't risk his life for her or be so upset when she inevitably was destroyed. It was the most logical course of action, but she couldn't do it. She could suppress her feelings for the mission, but couldn't ignore them indefinitely; not when John was concerned. She remembered how she felt when she'd previously thought John hated her; apart from seeing John being shot by Cromartie and fearing for his life, it had been the worst thing she'd ever felt.

"Thank you," John said quietly. "I love you, Cam." Cameron looked at him for a moment, unsure of what to say, when someone knocked loudly on the door. Ryan entered without being asked to come in and received a death glare from John in return.

"What's so important you just barged in here?" John snapped at Ryan, surprising the lieutenant colonel, Cameron, and himself with his outburst.

"I've assembled a platoon, as you asked," Ryan reported. "And Lieutenant Baum's asking to speak to you before your men head back to Colorado. They're assembled in Hangar One."

"Thank you," John replied impatiently. "I'll see Baum first and then brief the men in a minute."

"Yes, sir," Ryan saluted John and turned back towards the door. As he turned, he caught Cameron's gaze and tried to stare her down, focussing every iota of mistrust and resentment he felt for her into it, as if he thought he could somehow kill her if he glared hard enough at her.

"Anything else?" John asked Ryan.

"No sir."

"Then get out," John snapped. Ryan bowed his head in submission and left the room, grumbling as he marched out. The last thing John needed now was Ryan flaring up again over Cameron. The man had been very cooperative when John asked him to assemble a platoon to go after Cromartie; he'd offered to hand pick the very best men he had for the job. Something John found strange, as Ryan had acted like an ass since the moment John arrived in Las Vegas, but he let it go, being more worried about Cameron than with Ryan's attitude.

* * *

John and Cameron watched the convoy of vehicles as they lined up and made ready to depart. 4th Infantry had been relatively lucky in the Area 51 battle; they'd only lost seventeen men, and all their vehicles were intact save for a damaged Stryker and two destroyed Humvees. The other units – which were also preparing to leave Area 51 – had been hit much worse. Still, John felt each of those deaths, and the half dozen serious injuries, as if they were his own family. Of course, one of them  _was_  his family. Cameron stood by him but said nothing, both lost in their thoughts.

Ryan had complained constantly, but had been silenced by both John and Cameron, and also the newly promoted Colonel Perry, who seemed equally as sick of Ryan as John was. Perry, despite his arrogant and self centred nature, knew what was at stake and had agreed with John's decision to send the men back. Perry, along with Davenport, Derek, and everyone else, had been shocked when John had said he wasn't coming back with them. "Connor, we're ready to go," Perry announced. "We're just loading the wounded and we'll be out of here."

"Good," John nodded. "Once we've taken care of Cromartie; Cameron and I will drive back up to Colorado."

"I don't like it," Perry grumbled. "How do you know this metal," he pointed at Cameron, "won't side with the other one?"

"I'm programmed to protect John," Cameron replied. "I'd never hurt him."

 _You already have,_  John thought, his heart still breaking over Cameron's decision to split up.  _More than you'll ever know._  John didn't know whether or not Cameron realised she might as well have thrust a hot knife into his gut and twisted it, for all the pain he was in.

"She won't," John added simply. He was about to list all the reasons why Perry should trust Cameron, when he saw a pair of soldiers carrying Derek in a stretcher towards the convoy. John excused himself and Cameron and they walked over to Derek, who was being loaded into the back of a Stryker. John ordered the men away from the armoured vehicle and sat in the back next to where Derek lay. Cameron followed him inside and pulled the rear hatch closed. John couldn't help but stare at the drips and catheters running in and out of his body, at the bruises and lacerations all over his face and body, or at the makeshift splints on either side of his leg. Derek looked like he was going to fall apart any second. Derek looked up and thought the exact same thing about John.

"I'm the one who nearly got killed John, but you look worse than me right now," Derek commented, seeing the sullen look on John's face.

"Forget it," John said. "What's up?"

"I heard you're going after Cromartie."

"Yeah, we're leaving once you guys are gone."

"Let me come with you," Derek said, then realised he'd be useless in his present state. "Or at least take our guys."

"You'd be ineffective," Cameron replied, earning a middle finger from Derek in return. "Skynet's aware of Cheyenne Mountain; we need our soldiers to defend it."

"I've got Cameron with me," John said. "We'll be fine."

Derek gave a short, humourless laugh. For once, it wasn't Cameron he was worried about; it was the Las Vegas troops who'd be with John that concerned Derek; reservists, weekend warriors whose only combat experience had been less than two days ago, in what had mostly been a tank battle.  _At least the tin can is bulletproof,_ he mused. Oddly, Derek realised he'd trust Cameron over any of Ryan's troops to keep John safe; something he hated himself for. He knew Sarah would bust his balls if she was here now and saw he'd relaxed his stance on Cameron.

"I'm not gonna talk you out of it, am I?" Derek asked.

"No," John answered sternly. "We're taking care of him for good this time."

"At least take these, then," Derek reached under the stretcher and pulled out his Mossberg 590 shotgun and his Uzi. "They're my lucky charms." His brother Kyle had always had that photo of Sarah that he'd thought stupid at the time; Derek preferred a 'lucky charm' that would actually  _do something_  when he needed it _._

"Derek, you've never  _once_  taken out a Terminator with either of those; you tried against Cameron and she kicked your ass. How are they lucky?"

"I'm alive, aren't I?" Derek replied, holding out the shotgun to John.

"There's that," John shrugged his shoulders in concession and took the shotgun, but passed on the Uzi; unlike Derek, John didn't like to be laden down with too many weapons. Derek often took his Uzi, shotgun, and sidearm with him on missions,  _plus_  an assault rifle. John didn't plan on needing that many weapons against Cromartie.

"And  _you,"_  Derek pointed at Cameron, locking eyes with her as he tried to burn his message across through his gaze. "Look after him," Derek gestured to John. "Anything happens to John, and I'll burn you down."

"If anything happens to John, I'll let you," Cameron replied, a hint of sadness in her voice that Derek picked up on. Derek was taken aback by that; he knew Cameron's existence revolved entirely around his nephew, that without him she placed no value on herself. But to hear it like that, as if without John she  _wanted_  to be destroyed; Derek started to see that John had a point, that there was more to Cameron than meets the eye. He still found it deeply disturbing, to sat the least.

John heard several vehicle doors outside slam shut and realised the convoy was ready and waiting to depart; waiting for him to leave so they could head back to Cheyenne Mountain. John was at a loss for words; he still felt awkward with Derek for the rift that had opened between them over Cameron, and he knew the issue hadn't been properly resolved yet. He hated leaving it in the air like it was, but he had no other choice right now. Every minute they delayed the convoy could be a minute Skynet had to attack an undermanned Cheyenne Mountain.

"I'll see you soon," John said to Derek as Cameron opened the rear hatch and they both turned to leave. Derek nodded goodbye – never one for emotional gestures, and Cameron sealed the hatch as John jumped out the back. As soon as they were clear of the Stryker, the whole convoy started their engines and drove towards the airport's exit, ready to cross nearly eight hundred miles of Skynet territory to protect their home base. John wished he could have gone with them; he wanted to be out of Nevada as soon as possible and back in Cheyenne Mountain, where he and Cameron felt most at home; where they could smooth out their troubles together in their quarters without worrying about what the likes of Ryan were up to.

"Ryan's waiting for us," Cameron said to John as he watched the last of the vehicles disappear from sight. John dropped his head and sighed; he really didn't want to do this. He wished he and Cameron had just gone with the convoy and left Ryan, Las Vegas, and Cromartie in the dust.

They entered the hangar where Ryan had assembled a platoon of men, ready for John's orders. The hangar used to house the Apache helicopters, before John ordered them to Area 51 to protect the base there. Without the sleek, deadly attack helicopters and the equipment needed to fuel, arm, and maintain and repair them, the hangar felt massive and empty. The troops Ryan had brought were scattered around the hangar, some playing cards, some reading. They shot up and snapped to attention as John entered, and all stared suspiciously at Cameron, but said nothing. John smiled slightly at that; they had their doubts but they kept them to themselves. He guessed he couldn't ask for much more as far as their opinion of Cameron was concerned. When he got back to Cheyenne he decided he'd try and work hard to turn people's opinions of her around, but he didn't care what Ryan's men thought, as long as they followed his orders.

"Relax," John ordered them. He didn't want them all stood to attention like they were; John hated standing on ceremony and only did it because it's what they were all used to. They all sat back down on seats, on crates, on the floor, as John and Cameron stood before them. "As you all know, Lieutenant Baum was attacked last night by a machine."

"Probably  _that_  bitch," one of the men muttered to his friends.

"Do you have something to say?" John walked up to the young solider and thrust his face towards him, so close he could smell the tobacco on his breath as he stared the man down. The young private gulped nervously as John's eyes bore down on him, striking fear into him until he looked away.

"No sir," he mumbled pathetically.

"Good. Now shut up and listen. A machine attacked Lieutenant Baum; it wasn't Cameron. We're going to hunt it down and kill it. Cameron will tell you everything you need to know." John gestured for Cameron to come forward and brief them. She took a step forward before she spoke.

"It's a T-Triple Eight advanced infiltrator," she started.

"In English, please," a corporal called out condescendingly. Cameron didn't quite understand; she was speaking English. She looked to John for an explanation.

"In laymen's terms," John said quietly. "They're not from the future, remember. Make it simple."

"Thank you for explaining," Cameron replied in a whisper before she turned back towards the men. "His name is Cromartie. He's a cyborg, like me." Cameron saw the confusion on her faces and realised they didn't know what a cyborg is. "Cybernetic organism; living tissue over a hyper-alloy combat chassis."

"Hyper-alloy?" The same corporal enquired.

"Coltan-titanium alloy; resistant to heat and extreme stress," Cameron explained. John realised she was having to explain everything to them, like he did to her four years ago. But unlike him, Cameron, being a Terminator, had near endless supplies of patience. If they'd managed to stop Judgement Day, John mused, she'd have made a good teacher.

"Cromartie's designed to kill humans; he's faster, stronger, smarter, and more durable than humans."

"You're saying a  _tin can_  is better than we are?" Ryan griped, annoyed.

"Yes, he's better than you are," Cameron answered back. Her comment was met with terse mutterings among the soldiers, thinking Cameron meant that her 'kind' were better than people.

"Pay attention," John rolled his eyes. Ryan had said these were the best he had; he had a feeling Ryan was either holding out on him, or everyone under Ryan's command really was as bad as he was. If it was the latter, then they were royally screwed once John had left.

"No matter how good you  _think_  you are," John said, deadly serious. "He's better. However tough you think you are, however fast, however smart; trust me; he's more. Cromartie blew away an FBI swat team four years ago. Twenty well armed, well trained men;  _one_ survived." John didn't tell them that the only reason James Ellison survived was because Cromartie was using the agent to get to him. "When Cameron tells you about Cromartie; you listen. Or you die."

Most of the men straightened in their seats to listen. They hated Cameron but they all recognised that John Connor was the man who'd brought them from hiding away in an airport on the outskirts of the city to a massive victory against Skynet, and shown them that the machines could indeed be beaten.

Cameron gave them a thorough lecture on the T-Triple 8 infiltrator; what its capabilities were, what kind of firepower was effective and what wasn't. She'd been met with a chorus of groans when she'd told them their M4A1 assault rifles would be all but useless against him, and that even with thermite rounds he'd be an incredibly tough kill. His coltan armour would stand up to single shots and even small bursts of thermite rounds; and it would still take sustained fire to bring him down. She told them to shoot for the top of the head, the knees, hips, shoulders and elbows, because the armour was weaker at the joints than on the main torso. She also told them exactly how he was controlled; by a neural net processor, and pointed to them where it was on her, and that a half dozen accurate shots with thermite rounds to the port cover would burn through and hit the chip.

Cameron poured it all out to them; almost everything she knew about the Triple 8 series, minus their origins or true function. Everything she and John thought they'd need to know in battle. John could tell they'd listened to her; many of their faces were filled with dread at what they were about to go up against.

"Any questions?" John asked after Cameron finally finished.

"Yeah," the corporal from before- Harland, John saw from the nametag on his uniform, stood up. "What does this guy actually  _look_ like?" It struck John that that was the first intelligent question he'd been asked all day.

Cameron was about to rattle off a detailed and thorough description of Cromartie's appearance, when John decided on a more 'efficient' approach.

"Who knows who George Lazlo is?" He asked. "Anyone seen Beast Wizard?" Several of the men muttered eagerly, seemingly knowing who John meant. John guessed that a little over half the men present knew who he was talking about. That was enough.

"We're after Lazlo? Didn't he die in a police raid a while back."

"FBI," Cameron corrected him. "But it wasn't George Lazlo; Cromartie looks like George Lazlo."

"There you go," John said, taking a deep breath before he continued. "Now, here's what you do. Split into ten teams of three and scour the city up and down for him. There's a heavy weapons cache I had buried after the Area 51 raid; laser weapons capable of melting Cromartie into slag. We found them in a basement in the lab complex and cached them for safekeeping. You hunt for Cromartie and keep him occupied while me, Cameron, and a small fire team finds the cache. Radio in when you see him, keep him pinned down, and we'll finish him off if you haven't already.

"Where's the cache?" Corporal Harland asked.

"In the Las Vegas Strip, in the vault of one of the old casinos. Keep him away from there until we're ready and we've got the laser weapons set up. We all set out tonight after dark. Any more questions?" Nobody said anything so John dismissed them. They all shuffled out of the hangar and towards the airport proper, to eat and get ready for the mission, leaving John, Cameron, and Ryan alone in the hangar.

"There isn't really any laser weaponry is there, Connor?" Ryan asked accusingly.

"No," John admitted. "That was a lie."

"Do you mind me asking  _why_  you just fed a load of bullshit to my men?"

"Because Cromartie's after  _me,_ and I want to give him what he wants." Cameron knew the plan but looked questioningly at him because of how he worded it. "Cromartie will spot one of those teams with ease and I want them to lead him to the strip; where we'll be waiting."

Ryan looked at John as if he'd grown two heads; he'd just heard John say how powerful and dangerous this 'Cromartie' machine was, that it was after him, and he  _wanted_  it to find him? The man was crazy; he must have had a death wish and he was planning on taking them with him.

John picked up on Ryan's confusion and wondered how the hell the man had ever made it to lieutenant colonel, or even gotten a commission in the first place.

"A fucking ambush," John sighed, having to spell it out for the Las Vegas commander. "We set up with heavy weapons, thermite rounds, grenades and rockets, wait for him to come to us, and  _BANG!_ " John smacked his fist into his open palm for emphasis. "He's scrap metal."

"What do you have to say about all this?" Ryan asked Cameron. He still didn't get why this machine didn't seem to have a problem with working alongside humans to kill its own kind. He was still convinced it was a double agent; that it had Connor fooled and was working for Skynet all along. And now Connor wanted to risk the lives of his men to get rid of a machine that, as far as Ryan could work out, was _Connor's_  problem, and his alone.

"Two squads should be sufficient for the ambush," Cameron stated, leaving no room for Ryan to argue.

"I'll see to it," Ryan turned and left once again, his mind buzzing with the new information John had given him.

John and Cameron walked back in tense silence to their quarters. The airport was so much quieter than before, John noticed. With his own men on their way back to Colorado, the Utah and Arizona units having already left, and over half of Ryan's men reassigned to Area 51, the airport was like a tomb compared to twenty four hours ago. Not a word passed between them until they were back in their room and the door closed. Cameron trained her ears on the door to make sure nobody was eavesdropping on them. John slumped once more onto the couch; hating himself.

Cameron sat next to him and placed her hand on his arm, squeezing lightly and running a brief scan. What she found worried her. John was incredibly stressed; elevated pulse and blood pressure, increased temperature, and he was sweating profusely. He was either stressed or suffering from an infection. She knew it was the former.

"You're upset."

"No shit," John retorted. Cameron looked to him for an explanation and he knew she wouldn't drop it until he gave her one; one of the only fallbacks about having a Terminator girlfriend was that he couldn't pretend there wasn't a problem, and she never let it rest until she knew what the problem was and tried to solve it. Which wasn't a bad thing, but sometimes John just felt the need to bottle it all up. He'd been so used to it throughout his life that he still wasn't used to opening up sometimes, even to Cameron.

"Do you know what I just did back there?" John asked her. "What I did to them?"

"You lied to them," Cameron answered.

"Yeah, and I got them killed. This time tomorrow, they'll all be dead, because of  _me!"_  That was the part of the plan John hadn't told Ryan; that he fully expected Cromartie to hunt down and kill some, if not all, of the search teams they'd send out. They'd told the men to keep away from The Strip – the main part of Las Vegas, where all the casinos had once been before Judgement Day. He'd fed the men misinformation, knowing Cromartie would capture and extract information from at least one team. They'd tell Cromartie that John was searching for laser weaponry that would make short work of him and any other machines, and Cromartie would try to beat John to it, and walk right into a trap.

John had actually  _planned_  for this, to send good men to their bloody, excruciating, deaths, to lure Cromartie into an ambush.

"It's necessary to make sacrifices sometimes," Cameron tried to comfort John.

"I know, John leaned forward and held his head in his hands, staring at the floor and feeling sick to his stomach with what he'd done. "I'm gonna burn in hell for this, one day." John realised he was officially as bastardised as his future self; ruining people's lives and sending them to their deaths for 'the greater good.' He wondered if his future self hated what he'd become, as much as he did.

Cameron said nothing but wrapped her arm around John and pulled him closer. She knew he'd have to make sacrifices like this; Future John made them all the time. He'd hated himself, and Cameron remembered several occasions where he'd toy with his sidearm for hours at a time, loading it and pressing the barrel against his temple; contemplating suicide. She'd never have let him do it, but Cameron suspected that after she'd left for 1999, Future John probably did commit suicide. He'd have waited until they'd won the war and then shot himself. Future John was a broken man; she wouldn't let the same thing happen to her John.

He let her pull him into her embrace until he remembered she'd broken it off with him only hours ago.

"Don't, Cameron," John muttered as he pulled himself upright. "Not if it doesn't mean anything." He didn't want meaningless comfort; he'd sought that with Riley, back in 2008; meaningless, pointless distraction from the harsh reality of his life. He'd felt ashamed after he'd realised what she really was, that he'd been manipulated all that time, that she'd never cared about him and he was just a mission to her. He knew the same wasn't true of Cameron. She loved him- or at least, she  _had loved_  him. She'd stopped, because he'd treated her like dirt over the incident with Derek, even though he'd believed her innocence. But if she didn't truly love him anymore then he didn't want her affections; without her love it would be nothing more than a meaningless gesture.

Cameron withdrew her arm, hurt at John's rejection. She knew John needed her comfort, but he was refusing her because she'd decided to end their relationship. It was for his own good and he'd come to realise it eventually. She didn't know it would hurt both of them like this; she wanted to hold John, for John to hold her. She missed the closeness they'd had, but knew she had to put John's needs first, even above what John  _wanted._

"I'm sorry, John." She truly was, for everything. She wanted, more than anything, for things to go back to the way they were. She wanted to tell John she loved him, that she didn't want to end things between them, but she knew it had to be done. An awkward silence fell between them, both wanting to speak to the other but afraid of what the other might say or think. Neither truly knew the white hot, agonising pain the other felt.

* * *

**Somewhere outside North Las Vegas Airport**

**Twelve hours later (3** **rd** **August, 2011)**

Ryan peered through his binoculars, searching for any sign of his contact in the inky black night. This part of Las Vegas had minimal damage; the nuclear warhead that struck the city had been a small, tactical weapon, launched from an unmanned B2 bomber. While the central strip of Las Vegas – where all the casinos and hotels were located- had been devastated completely for a mile in all directions but then tapered off. This far out from The Strip, most of the damage had been caused by flying debris – and there had been plenty of it. Cars had been thrown into the sides of buildings by the force of the blast; shattering walls and roofs. Litter and small pieces of debris were strewn everywhere; as was the occasional bullet riddled corpse – victims of Skynet's follow up attack after the nuclear strike, using T1 drones from Area 51 and Nellis.

There was no sign of life out here at all; it was a tomb, and the silence made Ryan afraid. He wondered if he should just go back to the airport, let Connor do his thing and then be rid of him.  _No,_  Ryan resolved as he scanned the horizon once again. Connor was crazy and going to get them all killed; he had to be taken out of the picture.

Ryan stared out at a police cruiser that had been thrown into the side of a corner store; it's back end still sticking out of the wall at an angle. Curiously, the wheel was spinning, yet there was no wind and nothing around that could have touched it.

Suddenly, everything went black inside the binoculars and Ryan could see nothing. He lowered them and found himself staring at a man's chest; he yelped out loud in shock and fell back on his ass as he instinctively tried to get away. He got a good look at the newcomer; tall, blondish-brown hair, blank eyes and expressionless face. He'd never heard of George Lazlo or the movie 'Beast Wizard', but from Connor's description, this was clearly the guy.

"Cromartie, right?"

"Yes," Cromartie replied, picking up on the alias he'd used to attack John Connor in 1999. Cromartie wasn't actually his name; he had no name. He was officially Kaliba Systems Series T888, Model 350. He understood humans preferred to attribute names and labels to things, and that preference was usually for shorter names. 'Cromartie' would suffice for this interaction.

"I'm Lieutenant Colonel Ryan," he introduced himself. "Little help?" Ryan held out his hand for assistance getting up. Cromartie regarded his hand and reached out, pulling the man upright onto his feet, and then lifting him up by the throat into the air.

"Where is John Connor?" Cromartie asked, squeezing Ryan's throat to the point of choking. "A large convoy of vehicles left North Las Vegas airport today; did John Connor leave with them?"

"That's... what...for!" Ryan gurgled out as Cromartie slowly crushed down on his larynx. Cromartie couldn't understand what he was saying, so he dropped Ryan to the floor and allowed him a few seconds to catch his breath.

"Please repeat what you just said," Cromartie ordered him. Ryan realised Cromartie was indeed the one in charge right now. He needed to change that.

 _"I said,_  that's what I came here for!" He snapped angrily, glaring at the machine and trying to act superior to it. "You want John Connor; I want to get rid of John Connor."

"Tell me where he is."

"I will, but first I want a deal," Ryan replied.

"Deal?"

"Yes, a deal. If I give you Connor; you, and Skynet, leave Las Vegas alone. Understood?"

Cromartie paused for a moment. He hadn't considered that any human would be willing to hand over John Connor. He'd spotted Ryan alone, searching for something, and had planned to torture him to glean information on John Connor. If this human gave him John Connor's location, it would save him a lot of work.

"Deal," Cromartie replied, an obviously fake smile on his face.

"You mean it? You won't come after us?"

"I only want John Connor," Cromartie answered. "Your men are irrelevant."

"One more thing," Ryan added. "You kill Connor and his robot, and  _only_ them. Leave my men alone."

"Deal," Cromartie repeated, lying through his teeth. He'd kill anyone who got in the way of him terminating John Connor, but telling Ryan that would make him withhold the information and he'd have to resort to torture. It was more effective to lie; this human didn't seem particularly intelligent.

"Connor's got half a platoon with him on the Las Vegas Strip," Ryan said. "They're waiting in ambush for you, near the Caesar's Palace casino. They've got grenades but no thermite rounds," he added. He'd switched the rounds, giving them regular bullets, so Cromartie would hopefully not deem his men a threat, and leave them alone.

"Is the cyborg with him?" Cromartie asked.

"Yeah," Ryan seethed, remembering hearing Connor say 'I love you' to the machine, unaware that Ryan was outside his door at the time. It made him sick, and steeled his resolve to get rid of him. "Yeah, his metal whore's with him."

"'Whore'?" Cromartie asked, confused. The newest Skynet models were capable of sexual intercourse as a means of infiltration, but John Connor knew his protector's nature. He didn't understand why a cyborg would continue such behaviour when it wasn't necessary.

"Yes, his whore," Ryan spat. He figured it might be a useful piece of information Cromartie could use against Connor. "He's in love with the thing. It's wrong; it's  _sick!"_

Cromartie ignored Ryan's rant, uncaring about John Connor's feelings towards his cyborg protector, beyond how it could be used to his advantage. Ryan started shaking with fear as Cromartie stepped closer to him. He'd seen the terrible power that the other cyborg, Cameron, possessed. This one was much larger, and he looked far more dangerous; as if it would rip his head off, just for the sake of it. He felt a cold sweat come over him and his knees nearly gave out as Cromartie stopped inches from him.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Cromartie said, turning away from Ryan and walking off, back into the shadows of the night and disappearing amongst the rubble within seconds.

Ryan let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and became aware of a warm, damp sensation in the crotch of his trousers. He couldn't believe he'd pulled it off; within a day, Connor would be dead, and Skynet would leave Las Vegas alone.

He once again wondered if he was doing the right thing; doing a deal with a machine. They worked for Skynet. They wanted to kill humans. They couldn't be trusted. But neither could Connor, Ryan thought. Connor would lead them all to their deaths if he was allowed to continue, and Ryan couldn't allow that. He had to put his people first. Ryan would do a deal with the Devil himself to get rid of Connor. He knew what the machines wanted, what drove them; he had no clue what John Connor was up to; what his plan was or if he even had a plan.  _Better the devil you know._ Ryan thought.


	17. A Deal With The Devil

**Two miles north of Las Vegas Strip, 5th August 2011.**

Three men trekked through the desolate, dilapidated landscape of smashed, torn and crushed buildings, cars, trucks, and various scattered debris. The Strip itself had been Ground Zero; where the nuclear warhead had exploded from above and flattened almost everything for over a mile around. The destruction had tapered off as it expanded outwards; their current position, two miles from the Strip, hadn't been consumed in the miniature sun created by the warhead that had heated to a million degrees in a fraction of a second and vaporised nearly everything within a mile and a half, but the blast wave had expanded outwards with the force of a thousand hurricanes and torn through the city, reducing the once prosperous area into a large jungle of twisted metal and concrete; the landscape dominated by the burnt out, twisted skeletal structures various buildings.

The three soldiers moved slowly, weapons aimed forward as they carefully picked their way across the ruins and searched for the least treacherous way through. Their path was fraught with danger; rotting corpses, wild animals, disease, even the twisted wreckage of the once illustrious city held the promise of death; unstable hills of loose concrete and rock lined with millions of jagged metal shards waiting to be fallen upon. Their patrol was dangerous enough even  _without_  a cybernetic killing machine prowling the city.

As he took point position, Corporal Harland wondered how he'd been picked for this shitty job; trawling through the ruins of the city, looking for a killer robot - the only clue they had was that he looked like the actor George Lazlo - while Ryan and most of the others sat comfortably in the airport. They'd been walking for hours, searching for the killing machine that General Connor's metal sidekick had told them about, and they'd seen nothing so far. His feet ached, he was tired, and he was thirsty as hell. He held his hand out to signal the two men behind him to stop.

"Take a break," Harland told them as he shrugged off his pack and took the canteen from his belt, opening the cap and taking a large mouthful of water; gulping it down greedily then taking off his helmet and splashing some over his face. Even in August, the effects of nuclear winter left Las Vegas perpetually cold, but Harland was sweltering in his combat gear; sweating from unbroken hours of marching. "We'll set off again in ten minutes."

"Seriously," one of the other two men, Private Hook, asked as he sat down on a large slab of concrete and took out his own water canteen. "Why are we out here?"

"Looking for a robot," the third soldier, Private Quinn, retorted.

 _"I know that,"_ Hook shot back. "I meant,  _why?_ Colonel Ryan said Nellis is swarming with machines, so why are we picking our way through this crap, looking for  _one_  robot?"

"This one looks human," Harland answered. He'd actually taken the machine's speech seriously once she'd got going. "Just like the tin bitch that follows Connor everywhere. We didn't even know what she was until three days ago, same goes for this other one; what if it sneaks in elsewhere; another base? It'd kill them all in their sleep and they'd never see it coming."

"I guess," Hook replied. "Colonel Ryan thinks Connor's crazy."

"Who'd you trust?" Harland said. "Connor, or  _Ryan?_  The man's a desk jockey. At least Connor seems to know what he's doing."

"Yeah, but he's like twenty years old at the most. Who the hell made him a General, anyway?"

"Someone smarter than the moron who made Ryan a lieutenant colonel, that's for sure." Quinn chipped in. "You wanna know what Ryan did back in the world, what his day job was? He was some pen pusher for a defence contractor. That's why he's a lieutenant colonel; he had connections, knew the right people. Connor may be a kid, but I'd rather follow him than  _that_ old fart."

"Still," Hook said as he put his canteen away and removed his helmet to cool off. "Why is it  _we're_  out here doing all the leg work and putting our asses on the line, while Ryan's sat on his fat ass back at base, and Connor gets to play with funky laser guns?"

"Relax," Harland replied. "All we gotta do is find this asshole and radio in his position, then-"

A loud  _crack_  of gunfire sounded from behind them and the top of Private hook's head exploded in a shower of blood, bone, and brain matter, spraying gore all over Harland and cutting him off midsentence. Hook dropped to the ground, still twitching slightly as what was left of his brain hadn't yet caught on the the fact it was dead.

"Contact left!" Quinn screamed out and fired. Harland instantly shouldered his rifle and searched for targets. Three more shots rang out and Quinn fell down screaming. His knees were a bloody mess and a large, gaping hole appeared in his shoulder; all three wounds bleeding profusely.

"Crap!" Harland cursed, torn between helping Quinn and trying to take out whatever was shooting them. The decision was made for him as the 'man' they'd been searching for approached from under a large pile of twisted rubble that had once been a store of some kind, brandishing an assault rifle in one hand and an M-32 grenade launcher slung over his shoulder. Cromartie, Lazlo, Beast Wizard. Whatever the hell it was called; it was here, now, and intent on their blood. "Come on, you fucker," he muttered as he switched to automatic and held the trigger down, spraying a long burst at the machine.

Cromartie twitched as each round struck his chest but the bullets didn't even faze him. "Fucking machine lied to us," Harland muttered as he fired once more, again, to no effect. The thermite rounds didn't work.  _Let's see you shrug this off,_  Harland thought as he started to pull a high explosive grenade from one of his pouches. Cromartie surged forward, faster than any Olympic sprinter, and closed the distance before Harland had the grenade even halfway out. He tore the radio headset from Harland's head, lifted him up by the neck, and watched the soldier squirm helplessly.

After a minute of struggling, Harland gave up, exhausted and seeing the futility of his efforts. Connor's metal pet had told them Cromartie was better than them – better than any special forces, even – and he'd listened, he'd taken it in, but deep down he hadn't really  _believed it;_ hadn't believed that anything could be  _that_  powerful. They'd  _never_  had a chance, he realised. It was like a maggot fighting a man; utterly hopeless, and  _he_  was the maggot. Still, maybe Connor and his machine would stand a chance with their shiny new laser toys he'd told them about.

 _Connor._ He realised this thing would be after him; it wanted him dead, and if it succeeded, would also get its hands on the very same laser weapons the young general was after. Harland didn't know much about the machines, only what General Connor and the tin can had told them. What he  _did know_ , however, was that a killing machine like this couldn't be allowed to get its grubby metal mitts on powerful weapons like that.

He grimaced through clenched teeth as Cromartie's grip tightened around his neck. "I won't lead you to Connor." Harland grunted in pain as Cromartie threw him to the ground next to Quinn, who was quietly crooning in pain and clutching his shoulder, trying to stem the blood loss.

"I know John Connor's location," Cromartie replied blankly. "I need your assistance."

"Fuck you," Harland snarled back. "Why the hell would I help you?"

"Because if you don't, I will kill him," Cromartie aimed his rifle at the now unconscious Quinn, who'd gone pale from blood loss and shock. "His injuries are severe but not lethal. Not yet."

Harland looked over to Quinn. They'd been in the same National Guard unit for three years now; every weekend out in the field, and serving together since Judgement Day. They'd been good friends for a while now, he, Quinn, and Hook. It was a hell of a choice; help the machine kill Connor or watch his friend die, probably followed by himself shortly after. He couldn't let Quinn die, he decided. And Connor had the machine with him. It was smaller than this one but could probably hold Cromartie off while Connor and the others took care of it. And perhaps Cromartie was bluffing; maybe he didn't know where Connor was, and Harland could try and give their position away and warn Connor somehow.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Take off your clothes," Cromartie answered.

* * *

**Las Vegas Strip**

John stifled a yawn as he lay still, trying not to move. He'd been in the same spot for two days solid, and he and the others in the ambush party were starting to get restless and impatient. They were laid up in the ruins of what had been a large casino; tacky, flashing neon signs, flashing lights and colourful displays had been replaced by piles of twisted metal and concrete overlooking a relatively open clearing among the rubble that stretched for two hundred metres from the front of the casino, completely clear apart from a few cars and emergency service vehicles that had been blown over like toys in the blast wave; the perfect killing ground for an ambush.

After securing the ambush site they'd laced the killing ground with trip wires, claymores, flares, and remote detonated C4 explosives, all buried in the rubble and invisible even to Cameron. John's logic was if Cameron couldn't see them then Cromartie couldn't either. They'd settled into three groups; the main killer group in the middle consisted of John, Cameron, and six others, and then the three man cut off groups to the right and left, who'd give warning of anything approaching and try to kill anything that tried to escape. All they had to do was wait for Cromartie to enter the killing ground and fill the area with flying lead and set off the explosives.

Cameron had hand picked many of the weapons in their arsenal, specifically to take out a Terminator. Most of the men had assault rifles with under slung 40mm grenade launchers; there were two M240 machine guns, two Javelin antitank rocket launchers, and one man with an M-32 grenade launcher. Cameron had made the mistake of not making sure Cromartie was dead before, she taking any chances this time round. She wanted Cromartie terminated with as much firepower as they could muster, from a distance, with minimal risk to John.

The casino had once been a tall, extravagant building; a monument to the hedonistic and pleasure seeking lifestyle of Las Vegas. When the city was struck by a low yield tactical nuclear warhead, the force of the blast had shattered the building; the top half had collapsed and blown over like a house of cards hit by a strong breeze. What was left had spilled out onto the street in front of the building in large hills of debris; perfect cover for the ambush party to avoid being seen by their prey. John, Cameron, and the twelve man ambush team were hidden up in the rubble, waiting for any sign of Cromartie. Two hundred metres behind them were four men on rear guard; hidden in the back of the destroyed casino behind them and keeping guard against any threats that might approach from behind.

John slowly turned his head and looked at the petite figure next to him on the right. Unlike everyone else, Cameron never got restless, never got tired and needed rest, and seemingly never got bored. The other troops had paired up and kept watch in two hour shifts, to allow some respite from the monotony of prolonged waiting. Cameron had kept her eyes constantly scanning the killing ground site for any sign of movement. So far, the only activity they'd seen had been a pair of dogs fighting over the carcass of a dead bird. It had provided slight entertainment for a few minutes before one of the dogs gave up and slinked off, tail between its legs as the victor proudly carried the carcass away. Other than that there had been nothing to do but watch and wait, and the waiting was getting to John.

Since getting into position two days ago, John and Cameron hadn't spoken a word to each other. They'd needed to stay silent in case Cromartie was out there, listening. They couldn't afford to give away their position; they'd get one shot at Cromartie and one shot only. If he escaped he'd have the advantage.

Still, John hated not being able to talk to her; they still had issues that needed to be resolved, and that couldn't happen until they'd completed the ambush and were on their way home. John hadn't realised just how much sitting around and doing nothing was involved in the war; nobody had told him that ninety percent of fighting involved simply waiting for the enemy to show up. John found himself willing Cromartie to show up, just so they could get this over with. Once they'd taken care of Cromartie, he and Cameron would drive back to Colorado, and they could use the long journey to talk things over and hopefully get their relationship back on track.

Confident no one else was watching, John slid his hand over to Cameron's and gently squeezed her fingers. He gave her a slight smile but she ignored him, staring at the area around the killing ground, scanning for targets. John's heart sank; he knew she was focused on the mission – as he should be – that it was a Terminator trait that would never disappear, but he couldn't help but think there was more to it than that. She could have squeezed back, given some sign of at least acknowledging him. She wouldn't have had to break concentration to do that, which made John think she was deliberately ignoring him, that it was truly over and she didn't want him anymore.

Before John could dwell on it further he felt a sharp tug on his left hand; the string he'd tied to his wrist yanked his arm slightly and John's heart skipped a beat. The left cut off group had seen something approaching. It was time, John knew. He tapped the back of Cameron's wrist twice; the signal for 'enemy approaching.' Cameron then tapped the man to her right, who passed the signal on to the next, and so on. John shouldered his Steyr AUG and checked the magazine and safety catch, then took aim in through the sight, scanning the killing ground. It was difficult to make out much; dawn was breaking and the sun cast a blood red glow through the murky grey skies of nuclear winter, not warming in the least but it played hell with his vision and he wondered if it affected Cameron at all.

He saw a figure stalk into view towards the far end of the killing ground, past the twisted, burnt out wreck of a car. John's whole world narrowed to inside the telescopic sight and he could feel his heart racing inside his chest in tense anticipation. The figure was tall, well built, and armed. He couldn't make out any facial features in the murky glow of the sun, but he could just about see the figure wasn't wearing DPMs. It had to be Cromartie, he realised. Nobody else would just stroll confidently out in the open like that; any human would be scurrying from cover to cover in case the machines were out on patrol.

"Cam," John whispered softly. "Is it him?"

"I don't know," Cameron replied. The sunrise was affecting her vision and she couldn't make out any details. There was no point in her switching to infrared vision as Cromartie would appear the same as a human. Skynet had designed the T-888 infiltrators with human thermal imaging equipment in mind.

John took careful aim as the figure marched further and further into the killing ground, approaching one of the trip wires they'd set. A hollow _WHOOSH_ sounded from below as the figure tripped a wire and flares soared up into the sky, illuminating the killing ground in a sickly green glow. John fired a burst from his weapon, striking the figure in the chest. He flinched but remained upright. A fraction of a second later the air was filled with the deafening roar of rapid fire from a dozen weapons. Hundreds of rounds of tracer fire streaked into the killing ground and knocked the figure off its feet.

Explosions flared around the killing area as the heavier weapons joined the fray, erupting in fire, shattering the ground and scattering debris in all directions, making it impossible to see anything.

"Keep firing!" John screamed through the din of the gunfire as he and Cameron fired several bursts into the dust and debris cloud caused by a Javelin impact. He looked to Cameron and they shared a quick grin as they carried on shooting. They had the bastard dead to rights.

* * *

Cromartie lay still on the ground, his attention directed through the M4A1 telescopic sight at his targets. He'd forced the human soldier he'd captured to switch clothes with him but had allowed the man to keep his bullet proof vest underneath the blue shirt that Cromartie had given him. He'd sent the human ahead into the killing area, instructing him to walk normally into the ambush site Connor had prepared – he'd not told the man it was an ambush site, of course – or he'd kill his injured companion.

While the human acted as a decoy, Cromartie had taken up position behind Connor's ambush and now had the four man rear guard team in his sights. The rising sun was casting a red glow that would momentarily obscure his vision – and that of Connor's cyborg companion. He'd planned for this and switched to infrared vision, seeing the heat signatures of the four soldiers and memorising their exact positions. They appeared to Cromartie as man-shaped orange, red, and yellow blobs among the blue and black of the cooler air and debris surrounding them.

Gunfire and explosions erupted from the ambush site in the distance. That was Cromartie's cue to execute the second stage of his plan. Using the noise from the ambush as cover he fired four single shots at the rear guard. The four guards fell to the ground, dead. The blood that sprayed from their heads appeared to Cromartie's infrared vision as yellow and orange blobs that spattered the ground. John Connor's ambush party wouldn't have noticed four single shots above the sound of their own concentrated fire. Cromartie felt no emotions; unlike Cameron, he was an automaton. He couldn't feel fear, or happiness, or feel excited, but the with a clear run to John Connor's position and the anticipation of a successful mission, all of Cromartie's processes were running much faster than normal. He switched back to his normal, red tinted vision, slung his carbine and shouldered the M-32 grenade launcher as he ran forward towards to terminate his target.

* * *

"Cease fire!" John called out finally after nearly a full minute's worth of firing and hundreds of rounds expended. The explosions caused by the rockets and grenades, as well as the exploding claymores that Cromartie must have either triggered himself or were set off by the heavier weapons, had kicked up so much smoke, dirt, and detritus that it had been impossible to see anything. John wished he'd brought ear defenders once again and wondered how he wasn't deaf after all that commotion.

John and Cameron got up slowly, followed by two more men. Together, the four of them advanced in pairs down the artificial hill and towards the killing ground to inspect their kill. One pair covered the other as the approached the clearing smoke where their target had last been seen.

Cameron put herself between John and where she'd last seen Cromartie, not wanting to risk John's safety until she knew for sure Cromartie was destroyed or disabled. That amount of fire would have torn any Terminator to shreds. Nothing apart from a T-1000 could have survived that, but she wasn't taking any chances. Despite what John now believed – and what she hadn't tried to dispel – she still cared deeply for John and didn't want him hurt in any way.

As the smoke cleared she saw the extent of their slaughter. There was barely anything left of their target. Red patches on the ground, fragments of bone and blackened lumps of singed flesh were scattered all around. A smoking arm lay on the ground, still holding the pistol grip of a shattered assault rifle. The hand was clearly, unmistakably, human.

"This isn't Cromartie," Cameron said. To everyone else her face and voice were a blank slate. John, on the other hand, knew Cameron well enough to tell she was worried. They'd just killed a person, not Cromartie, and they'd just given away their position to anyone or anything within miles.

"Where the hell is-" John was interrupted by a series of rapid explosions behind them, followed quickly by screaming and gunfire. John and Cameron turned to see Cromartie fire five grenades in rapid succession from a position on the second floor of the casino. The projectiles smashed into the ambush site, where John and Cameron had been less than a minute ago, and obliterated most of the men in a hail of fire.

"Run," Cameron grabbed John's hand and pulled him away from the scene and towards the cover of several upturned vehicles. She turned her head as she ran and saw Cromartie follow up his opening salvo of grenades with several bursts from an assault rifle. A few of the men who'd survived the grenade blasts turned and fired on the machine. Cameron used the distraction to push John forward, away from the killing zone and towards another shattered building across the street from the casino.

"Cameron...we can't leave them," John insisted, trying to fight Cameron's pushing. He'd led them into all this and he couldn't just sit there and watch them be slaughtered.

Cameron pushed John against a car door, out of Cromartie's sight. "You can't help them," she insisted. She peeked round the side of the car and saw two men left; the ones who'd accompanied them to inspect the kill. They were less than fifty feet away and Cromartie had jumped from the first floor, down the rubble hill, and towards their position. Both men fired on the machine with everything they had, trying to slow the machine's advance. Cameron noted the rounds had no effect on Cromartie, which didn't make sense. The fire the two men were putting into Cromartie should have been effective. She checked her own magazine to find the rounds were regular hollow points, not thermite rounds. Someone had switched their ammunition.

Cromartie fired a burst into the first man's chest, shredding his insides as he dropped to the ground, dead in an instant. Cromartie pulled the trigger on the second man and a single round hit him in the gut before the rifle  _clicked_  empty. He doubled over in pain but kept upright, fighting the white hot agony that seared his insides. The exit wound on his back was as big as a man's fist.

"Go!" The soldier screamed at John. "I'll cover you." He was dead anyway, his body just hadn't realised it yet. He turned and fired at Cromartie, who advanced slowly and calmly as the bullets tore chunks out of his flesh. Cameron wasted no time and pushed John forward again, trying to find somewhere for John to run and hide while she kept Cromartie occupied.

The soldier kept firing as Cromartie got within arms reach of him. Without a gun of his own, and unwilling to expend the last grenade from his launcher on a single human soldier, Cromartie simply punched through the man's gut; his fist burst out through the man's back and he lifted the man into the air as he roared out in pain. His agonised screams chilled John to the core from his and Cameron's hiding spot.

"Run," Cameron whispered to John. John leapt from their hiding place and dashed for the cover of several burnt out cars down the war torn street. Cameron followed close behind him but was too late to see Cromartie waiting, rifle in hand, only a few feet behind the car they'd been using as cover. John turned to shoot but Cromartie was too fast; a burst of fire caught him in the chest and he dropped like a stone.

 _"John!"_ Cameron screamed out, panicked as her charge and love was gunned down. Time seemed to slow down for Cameron and all she could focus on was John. If he was dead, she'd have to hope Cromartie would destroy her as well. She regretted telling John their relationship was over; his last thoughts would be unhappy ones. All he'd wanted; all  _they'd_  wanted, was to be together. Cameron had put his safety over his happiness, and it still hadn't done him any good.

Cameron fired a full auto burst from her weapon, emptying her magazine into Cromartie's chest. The force of a full magazine of assault rifle fire at less than forty feet knocked Cromartie off his feet and shredded his own weapon. Cameron was about to turn and attack him, eager to rip him apart for killing her John, when she saw John start to sit up. Relief washed over Cameron and she couldn't stop a slight smile from creasing her lips. He'd been wearing the coltan reinforced flak jacket she'd made him, but seeing John gunned down had caused all logical thought processes to abandon her and she'd panicked.

"John, run." She charged Cromartie as he got up and started to shoulder his grenade launcher, snapping a kick to the weapon and hurtling it through the air, away from the pair of them, and followed up with a rapid fire volley of punches to Cromartie's face and torso. Her eyes glowed with rage as she fought the machine that had nearly cost her everything.

John watched for a moment as Cameron assaulted Cromartie; both of them launched a flurry of punches at each other. They were almost too fast for John to keep track of; Cameron's hands and feet seemed to be a blur at times. She pummelled Cromartie's skull, bashing away in what John figured was barely controlled aggression. She wasn't fighting like a machine, he realised. He could see a real anger in her movements; every punch, every kick, filled with searing hatred for her opponent. John knew that Cameron's developing emotions sometimes got the best of her, and now seemed to be one of those times. Her punches were wild and uncoordinated; she lashed out in anger rather than her normal, machine like precision. She was feeling rage for the first time, and it was affecting her in combat. It was making her sloppy. John could see something else was wrong; Cameron was all over Cromartie, raining punches and kicks down on him and scoring several hits for every one that Cromartie got in on her, but it did nothing. She'd never had this much trouble against a Triple eight before.

No way was he going to run now. He wasn't going to leave her alone to fight this  _thing._ John checked his AUG, preparing to enfilade the Triple 8 and give Cameron a helping hand. Cameron's coltan flak jacket had saved John's life, the bullet impacts did nothing worse than bruise his ribs, but some of the rounds had struck his weapon and rendered it useless. John dropped it to the ground and shouldered the shotgun Derek had given him, racking the slide and putting a slug in the chamber. Not that it would really matter at this point, Cameron and Cromartie were viciously fighting hand to hand, so close and so fast that any shot he fired could cost Cameron the advantage as well as give it to her. He circled the pair and got closer to the fight, hoping he could get a clearer shot at Cromartie.

Cromartie smashed his head into Cameron's and momentarily stunned her out of her attack. He pushed her back and then charged at her. While Cromartie was superior in brute strength and had a size and weight advantage, Cameron was quicker, smarter, more agile, and could utilize her strength and speed to put far more power into a hit than Cromartie could using brute strength alone. She nimbly dodged Cromartie's charge and grabbed him by the shoulder, planning to use his momentum to throw him to the ground. She realised something was wrong when she couldn't lift him; he was much heavier than before. Cromartie used that split second of confusion and grabbed her shoulders, pushing her back pressing down with all his might to try and force her to the ground.

Cameron pushed back with everything she had, straining against his superior weight and height. She was at a severe disadvantage like this and was only a matter of time before her knees or elbows gave out from the strain. Eyes glowing blue once again in anger, she swept her foot out to try and take Cromartie's legs out from under him, but Cromartie had anticipated the move, pulled her into him and lifted her into the air by the neck and dropped to the floor, slamming her head so hard on the ground that the concrete shattered beneath her. He pinned her arms down with his knees and rained punches down on her face. Cameron struggled underneath him, trying to push him off, but Cromartie was too heavy and she couldn't get any leverage with her arms pinned as they were. She realised she'd underestimated Cromartie; he'd made modifications and improved himself; made himself heavier to further increase his weight advantage. She hadn't anticipated that. Cromartie had won, she realised. She couldn't see where John was and couldn't move her head or even focus properly with Cromartie hammering at her skull. She hoped John had run. She didn't care if she died, as long as he was safe.

"Hey!" She heard John shout from behind her. Cromartie raised his head up to see John standing above him. He thrust the barrel of the shotgun toward Cromartie's face and fired. The solid slug burst out of the gun, shattered his teeth and ricocheted inside his mouth like a pinball. The shot forced Cromartie backward slightly as John racked the slide once more and fired again, this time tearing away Cromartie's right eye and exposing the glowing red optic underneath and forcing Cromartie off of Cameron completely.

Before he could fire again, Cameron shot up and pushed him back, then turned back to Cromartie and charged him again at full speed. Her inertia actually forced Cromartie backwards slightly and Cameron pushed with everything she had, trying to force Cromartie backwards towards one of the C4 traps they'd laid for the ambush. She managed to push him back several feet before Cromartie dug his heels in and held his ground, stopping her momentum three feet away from the explosives hidden in a pile of rubble.

"John, the C4," Cameron called out as she struggled to hold Cromartie in place. John pulled out the remote detonator but hesitated; only a few feet away, the blast was a danger to Cameron as well. She was holding Cromartie between herself and the explosives, but John still didn't want to take the chance with her life. "John!" She called out again, snapping him out of it.

John closed his eyes, unable to watch as he pressed the detonator. The ground shook and fire blossomed outwards from the blast, accompanied by an almighty roar as the C4 exploded. Cameron and Cromartie disappeared in roiling flames that blossomed out from the centre like a flower. Bits of metal and concrete burst into the air and rained down on John and all over the killing zone, which had surely lived up to its name.

"Cameron?" John called out as the smoke and the dust cleared. He saw no sign of her and feared the worst. If he'd killed her he wouldn't be able to live with himself. No answer.  _"Cameron?"_  A small pile of freshly blasted debris moved and a tiny, feminine hand shot out into the air and pushed bits of metal off her.

"I'm here, John," she replied. John paused for a second as she sat upright. There was no sign of Cromartie, who'd bore the brunt of the blast. Cameron's clothes were torn and ragged, however, and the fireball caused by the C4 had burnt her face and neck severely. Her hair was singed and blackened at the ends.

"You okay?" John asked as he got down to his knees, level with her. He ran his hand over an ugly looking burn on the side of her face; it had burned right through and gleaming coltan showed underneath.

"Yes, my skin's damaged," she replied as she pulled him into a quick embrace. "It will heal."

John nodded to Cameron, and as he turned back at where there had just seconds ago been a magnificent conflagration courtesy of C4, there he saw the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

Cromartie was dead.

They were okay.

At that moment in time, nothing else mattered.

"Come on, Cam," John said, rising to his feet. "Let's get out of here and-"

Cromartie burst out from under a large steel girder on the ground and lunged towards Cameron. The C4 hadn't finished Cromartie off, but he looked like he'd been put through the shredder. His left arm was torn off at the elbow, ending in a mess of jagged coltan and sparking wires. One half of Cromartie's lower jaw had been torn clean off, most of the skin was torn from his face and the exposed machine eye had been shattered.

Cromartie lunged forward, stabbing Cameron with the jagged end of his ruined arm. An exposed conduit was still sparking with power from his fuel cell. Cameron convulsed as electricity surged through her body and overloaded her systems, forcing her into a reboot cycle.

"One hundred and twenty seconds," Cromartie said in a tinny, robotic voice; seemingly taunting John.

John backed away as Cromartie got to his feet and approached, limping heavily on one leg that had been bent from the force of the explosion. Alone against Cromartie and with nothing that could really damage him, John - for once in his life - did what he'd been trained to do, and ran. He sprinted for the cover of an overturned fire engine and hid behind the cab. Cromartie tried to follow but the damage to his leg was too severe and he couldn't chase after him. He calculated that by the time he got there, John would have run off elsewhere.

Cromartie looked back at Cameron's still form and recalled what Ryan had told him; that John was in love with the machine. It was illogical – machines couldn't reproduce and had no emotions. But he found it useful; he could use the cyborg to draw John Connor out. He turned back towards Cameron and smashed his remaining fist into her face repeatedly; the force of his blows splitting the skin on her cheek. Given long enough, he could crack open the endo skull and smash her chip. A hundred and twenty seconds wasn't long, but it could be done.

John peeked around the corner and saw Cromartie laying into Cameron while she lay there, vulnerable. Only ten seconds or so had passed and he didn't know if Cameron would survive Cromartie's punishment for another hundred and ten when she could do nothing to defend herself. Ice ran down John's veins as he felt a cold fury take over him; fury at Cromartie, for using her to lure him out like that, and fury at himself for running like a coward.  _Screw a hundred and twenty seconds,_  he thought. He was going to fucking  _kill_  that metal bastard.

He took a quick check of what he had on him; a single hand grenade and Derek's shotgun. Not enough to take Cromartie out; not by a long shot. He looked around for anything he could use as a weapon. The contents of the fire engine were strewn out on the ground; helmets, hoses, and one other thing stood out; a bright red fire axe lay on the ground. John picked it up and hefted the weight; it was solid steel and fairly heavy. He could use it as a last ditch weapon. He still didn't stand much of a chance, but he wasn't just going to let Cromartie hurt Cameron while he did nothing.

"Cromartie!" John roared, waving at the machine to get its attention. "Come and get me," John grinned as Cromartie got up from pummelling Cameron and limped towards John, dragging one foot slightly as he approached. Everything seemed clearer to John and time slowed to a crawl and he was overcome with a sense of hyper awareness; tracking Cromartie's every move, like a predator hunting its prey.

"That's it," John muttered as Cromartie moved further away from Cameron and closer to him. "Come on..." He pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it as hard as he could at Cromatie's feet, exploding just in front of the Terminator. The grenade did very little damage but the blast threw the already unsteady machine off its feet and gave John time to shoulder Derek's shotgun and move forwards,  _towards_ the machine that was bent on his blood.

John thrust the shotgun into Cromartie's face and fired at point blank range, forcing his head backwards from the impact and destroying what little skin he had left on his face. He fired again and again until Cromartie lost his balance and fell backwards to the ground. John dropped the empty shotgun and hefted the axe he'd picked up in the same motion, screaming out in rage and exertion; he swung it at Cromartie's head with everything he had. The blow glanced off the armoured skeleton and forced his head to the side as John swung it again with all his might. John felt, rather than heard, a satisfying  _snap_ as the axe connected with the exposed neck Cromartie's head lolled to one side as the axe sliced through one of the thinner pistons at the side of the neck that controlled his head motion.

John swung the axe a third time, screaming out a primal war cry as adrenaline took over and fuelled his attempts to decapitate the cyborg. The axe struck once again in Cromartie's neck and stuck there; lodged in between two armoured vertebrae. Cromartie viciously kicked forward before John could pull the axe out for another swing, catching him in the gut and sending him tumbling, end over end and landing in a heap on the ground.

Rising groggily to his feet, feeling like he'd just been hit by a bus, John looked for something,  _anything_  that he could use as a weapon, as it limped towards him again, holding the axe John had just used, seemingly planning to cleave him in half with the weapon.

As his head spun around, searching for another weapon, John's hand went for the combat knife Cameron insisted he carry with him at all times – knowing it to be a useless gesture but having nothing else left – when he spotted Cromartie's grenade launcher on the ground, thirty metres to his left. He'd not realised that the fight had brought them round almost in a full circle from where it had started. He hoped Cromartie hadn't fired all the grenades before Cameron had kicked it out of his grasp; either way this fight would be over  _very_ soon.

John dashed towards the weapon and could feel Cromartie give chase behind him. Even damaged as he was, he was still fast and still deadly; if he caught him it was all over.

Twenty metres left. John's heart pounded inside his chest and his lungs were on fire as he sprinted as fast as he could. Time slowed down once again and John felt like he was wading through mud; every stride was a supreme effort to stay ahead of Cromartie.

Ten metres left. John prayed to whatever powers that be were out there that Cromartie didn't catch him. John dived the last few feet towards the grenade launcher, rolling as he scooped it up in his hands and thrust it forward like a fist as he pulled the trigger. A single round shot from the barrel and smashed into Cromartie's chest with an earth shattering explosion. At such close range the concussion from the blast pushed John back to the ground from his half crouched position and stunned him for a moment.

His ears ringing and his vision slightly blurred, John struggled to his feet and blinked away the disorientation. When the smoke cleared he saw what was left of Cromartie. The once formidable, indestructible, unstoppable killing machine lay before him, barely functional. Cromartie was little more than a head, shoulders, and chest; the grenade shot had blown Cromartie in half and everything below chest level had been utterly destroyed. The arm that had survived the C4 explosion had been torn off at the shoulder, and his remaining eye had been blown out, rendering him completely blind. It wasn't enough, John saw. Cromartie still lived.

John knelt down and pushed the head to the side, exposing the CPU port cover to his view. He pulled out his knife and worked the tip of the blade under the port cover as Cromartie struggled to resist; with no limbs, eyes, or even teeth to try and bite him with, all he could do was wriggle impotently. John felt a surge of victory overcome him, having such power over a once mighty machine that was now at his mercy. He finally got the cover off and saw the exposed chip, pulled out the pair of needle nosed pliers he'd brought for this occasion and held them up to the CPU port as Cromartie struggled to keep John away from his chip. Completely disabled and with no hope of accomplishing his mission, he still refused to give up. John pushed the head completely to the side and leaned on it with one knee, pinning it to the ground as he gripped the chip with the pliers.

"The future's ours," Cromartie's last words rang out metallically; the voice modulator destroyed or damaged beyond use.

"Yeah, whatever," John replied his voice dripping with hatred and disgust for this  _thing_ now at his mercy. "I win; you're terminated, fucker _."_ He twisted and pulled the chip out, and Cromartie finally stopped struggling.

It was over; finally over. John snapped the chip in half and dropped the pieces to the ground. John felt the adrenaline drain from his system and replaced with a feeling of pure elation. He'd beaten the machine.  _John Connor_  had beaten one of Skynet's best. "You're terminated, fucker," he repeated. "Fucking terminated." A broad grin split his face and he burst into a fit of laughter. He knew it was the adrenaline seeping out of him; he didn't know what he found so funny. It wasn't funny, a lot of people had died and he'd barely survived by the skin of his teeth. But he couldn't stop laughing.

He'd finally beaten the machine that had taken his mother from him. The machine that had torn away his hopes for a normal life back in New Mexico, had chased him and his mother through time, nearly killing them both and making their lives a living hell; forcing them to constantly watch over their shoulders, the machine that had nearly shot him dead – twice - nearly killed his uncle, and strained his and Cameron's relationship past the breaking point; the machine that had killed so many people to get to him, was now gone. It wouldn't bring any of his victims back, though. And it didn't make any of the pain go away.

"Fucking machine... killed... mom... fuck!" John threw a punch at the motionless remains of Cromartie, then another. The thought of his mother brought up an anger he'd held deep inside him, and he rained punches down on Cromartie's remains, ignoring the pain as the skin was flayed from his knuckles and elation turned to rage and anguish as he babbled incoherently.

John didn't see Cameron complete her reboot cycle and get up. Nor did he see her make her way over to John as he laughed, then cried and screamed, and smashed his fists down on Cromartie's body. Cameron had never seen John like this before; even after Sarah had died, John had wept, he'd sobbed; he'd blamed Cameron and cursed and told her he'd wished they'd burned her in thermite, but he'd always been in control of his emotions. He'd never lost control before and Cameron didn't know what to do. She saw John was hurting himself, punching Cromartie repeatedly. He'd never be able to damage the coltan skull with his fists; he'd merely break his hands and fingers. She spotted a bright red fireman's axe on the ground and picked it up as she approached.

She briefly wondered how John had defeated Cromartie; her first reaction on rebooting had been a deep feeling of fear. She knew she'd been disabled for a hundred and twenty seconds and expected to see John's corpse upon rebooting, instead finding John kneeling over the remains of Cromartie. Considering John had no weapons capable of destroying or even disabling a T-888, and that John was the primary target, he shouldn't have survived. She didn't know the specifics, but she knew  _how_  he did it. He was John Connor. He beats Skynet. That's what he does; what he'd do.

Cameron stood behind John, watching him sob and rage and beat upon the coltan skull, still not knowing how to comfort him or whether he'd want her comfort; he'd rejected it before.

"John," she said softly, her voice instantly stopping John in his tracks. John turned and looked up at her. She saw his hands were bloodied and the skin flayed around the knuckles. Several fingers were swollen, likely bruised or possibly even fractured, but she couldn't detect any major injuries. Worse than any physical damage, she could see the emotional distress John was in now, his eyes were wild, feral, he was shaking and on the verge of tears. Cameron didn't know how to stop it, but she knew how to stop him from hurting himself further. "This will be more effective," she held out the axe in both hands for John to take, and nodded at what was left of Cromartie.

John stood up as he took the axe in his hands and stared down at the weapon, at Cromartie, and then back up at Cameron. Her eyes caught him as he took in her face, a childlike innocence within that he'd only ever seen in the smallest of children. It instantly quelled the raging flames inside him and gave him just enough clarity to realise the extent of his hysteria. Cameron's simple act of handing him the axe was enough to pull John back from the brink of insanity. He threw the axe away and roughly grabbed Cameron by the shoulders. He stared at her for a long moment, fire still in his eyes, before he dropped to his knees once more and sobbed into her chest.

Cameron knelt down on the ground, level with John, and held him as he cried into her, releasing all the anguish and pain and anger that he'd kept bottled up over the years. She held him close to her still, wanting to make his pain go away and make everything okay. She knew only she could do that. She'd been the only one who John had turned to for comfort since Sarah had died. She realised then that John didn't need her protection; he needed  _her._ Future John would have suppressed it, unable to let go in front of anyone. Her John had her; he could let go and show weakness around her, and only her. With her, John could be  _human,_  instead of always a cold, calculating general. His safety wasn't more important than his happiness, she realised, and he needed her just as she needed him.

Cameron pushed John away slightly, knowing what she needed to do to make things right. What she  _wanted_  to do. She cupped his chin and held his face close to hers, locking eyes with him before she spoke.

"I love you, John."

"You don't love me," John replied, tears streaming down his face. "I pushed you away; you said it was for the best." Part of him thought she was just saying what he wanted to hear.

"I was wrong," she answered back simply.

John stared into her deep brown eyes, seeing the emotion in them that no one else acknowledged, that no one else could see for what it really was; real emotion, not a fake or a facsimile. He saw Cameron waiting expectantly for his reply.

He couldn't bring himself to say it back; not because he didn't feel it, but because the words felt completely inadequate, a shadow of his true feelings for her. She fought for him, day in, day out. She'd kept him sane over the past year and come to understand him like no one else could. Cromartie had taken nearly everything from him, and Cameron had given him something back in return; a rock, a companion, someone to trust and rely on, someone with whom he could rant and rage and cry - and would never judge him, someone he could love. But love was only a word, and spoke nothing of the volumes he felt for her right now, especially now.

He pulled her closer and lowered his lips to hers, connecting in a long, deep, passionate kiss, his actions expressing more than words ever could. All their pain, their troubles in Las Vegas, Cromartie, the breakdown of their relationship, all of it forgotten in a single kiss that washed everything else away and forged them together once more. All the death, all the destruction, all the pain and suffering that they'd see and experience firsthand, it was nothing, as long as they had each other.

"I love you too, Cam," John finally said as they broke the kiss and they embraced once more. John didn't hear the quiet rumblings of treads on the ground as he held Cameron in relative bliss. "You know, Cameron," John smiled as she wiped the tears from his cheek – now tears of joy that they were together once more. "As long as we're together, I think we'll be okay."

Cameron opened her mouth to answer but she heard the rumbling tracks approaching. The behemoth form of a T-2 unmanned drone appeared from behind the overturned fire engine John had used for cover earlier. She could hear others approaching in the distance, and an HK buzzed overhead. Their battle with Cromartie had attracted Skynet's attention and it had sent units to investigate. They were surrounded by broken, burnt out car wrecks and in relative cover from the machine and it couldn't see them yet, but they'd be in its sights within seconds and had they had nothing to fight it with.

"Stay here," Cameron pushed John low to the ground and pulled him into a quick kiss and moved to the edge of cover, waiting for the drone to approach. The drone had sensed their heat and was closing in to investigate. It emerged from the edge of their cover and swivelled its guns to track them. Cameron leapt on top of the machine and kicked the left gun with all she had, bending the barrel in the middle. The right cannon turned to fire on John as Cameron wrapped her hands on the barrel and heaved upwards, pulling the gun up and away from John as it fired into the air, unleashing a volley of 30mm shells that would have torn John apart. Cameron could hear more machines approaching as she tried to disable the T2, which was swivelling rapidly to try and throw her off.

"Run," Cameron called out to John as she punched and kicked at the machine, thankful that for once John actually ran when told to. He didn't run far, though. He wouldn't leave Cameron to fight alone. Cameron had hit something critical on the machine and the gun kept firing in a single continuous burst, apparently unable to stop. She had to hold the chain gun pointing upwards to keep it from targeting John. The HK that had buzzed overhead hovered in the air for a moment and fired on the two machines. Cameron saw the missile's rocket motor ignite before launch and threw herself from the UGV. Despite her Terminator reflexes she was too slow, she'd never outrun a missile. She was in midair when the armour piercing rocket struck the T-2, erupting in a brilliant flash of roiling flame that consumed her.

 _"CAMERON!"_  John saw her engulfed in the flames and ran out of cover towards her and the remains of the T-2 drone, ignoring the HK. The explosion died down almost as soon as it flared. John's heart dropped when he saw Cameron lying face down on the ground, not moving, and a large shard of metal sticking out her back. He rolled her over onto her side and saw it had penetrated all the way through and out her chest. Her deep brown eyes were wide open and still, devoid of life. The skin around the right side of her face had been torn apart with shrapnel and a huge gash ran from her cheek down under her jaw, gleaming coltan shone through the gaping open wound. One of her legs looked completely torn up and the knee was bent at an odd angle.

"No, Cam, come on. Wake up," John shook her, knowing it wouldn't wake her but he at the edge of panic, not knowing what else to do. He'd never seen her that badly damaged before. "Wake up!" he cried out.  _Was she..._  No, he thought; she couldn't be dead. He'd seen Terminators survive worse than that before.  _So why isn't she moving?_ Had it hit per power cell?

John hooked his arms under her armpits and pulled backwards, trying to drag her away. If he could get her back to the airport, he could drive to Area 51, or failing that, back to Cheyenne Mountain, and fix her up good as new.

He'd barely dragged her ten feet when more HKs soared overhead and a pair of T-70s emerged from the same direction as the T-2 had come from. John could hear even more machines behind them. The marched closer and raised their gun arms at him as he moved so he was in their line of fire. John backed away from Cameron and steeled himself for the bullets that would end his life. He looked down at Cameron; if he was going to die then what better way that to be looking at the face of his lover?

A long moment passed and John wondered why they hadn't killed him yet; he'd never once seen a machine hesitate to kill. Then he remembered the stories his mother had told him about how they captured people in the future, and wondered if they'd started doing that yet. The other one approached Cameron's still form to investigate. John felt a cold rush down his spine; he couldn't allow them to capture Cameron. The worst thing that could happen was that Skynet got its hands on a Terminator; it would advance Skynet's technology by a decade at least. Terminators would show up everywhere and people wouldn't stand a chance against them.

Worse than that, John knew, Skynet would tear Cameron apart to learn her secrets, to find out what she was and how to reverse engineer the technology. Cameron would die alone in a cold stainless steel laboratory somewhere, dissected like a lab rat and her chip ravaged, pored over and over and played with until her very essence was erased. John wouldn't allow that.

"Come and get me," he called out to the machines as he turned and ran, hoping they'd follow. He sprinted as fast as he could, not caring where he went as long as it was away from Cameron. Both lumbering machines chased after him, more interested in live prey than the motionless form of Cameron, as he'd predicted. Cumbersome and ungainly, their appearance was almost comical as they ran. John ran across the killing ground as fast as his legs could carry him, bringing back memories of Cromartie chasing after him mere minutes ago. He made it across the killing ground and back towards the casino they'd hidden in front of, before the machines caught up to him, guns aimed at his head.

"Okay," John said as he raised his hands above his head. "I surrender." He didn't know if they understood him or not. One of the machines raised its other arm and pointed it at him, a large, tube shaped device that he'd never noticed before lay on top of the wrist; some kind of weapon, he figured. As if their machine guns weren't enough. "I surrender, tin cans," John repeated, looking back at Cameron and hoping he'd be able to find a way back to her. John snapped backwards as something burst out of the tube on its wrist and enveloped him, forcing him to the ground. It took John a moment to realise the device was a net launcher, and he was now ensnared. The net itself was lined with metal wires that poked and dug into his skin, obviously not designed with comfort in mind.

"I'll come back for you, Cameron," John swore. A second later he realised what the wires in the net were for as electricity coursed through the net. He twitched and convulsed uncontrollably as thousands of volts surged through every cell in his body. His last thoughts were of Cameron as his body finally gave in to the searing, all consuming agony, and shut down, everything turned dark and silent.

_I'll find you._

 

Continued in [Century](../../../631487)


End file.
